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Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction

William James

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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Never
Ease
Amounts
Beyond
Fatigue
Source
Dreamed
Strength
Sources
Amount
Distress
Power
Extreme
May
Extremes
Taxed
Find
Push
Obstruction

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Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
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You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about.
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The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
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Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it
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Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind --without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.
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Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein.
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Do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty.
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So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end...and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.
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Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
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We must not just patch and tinker with life. We must keep renewing it. Embrace novelty and uniqueness.
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When a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries.
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Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
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Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.
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I myself believe that the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.
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To be fertile in hypotheses is the first perquisite of creativity and to be willing to throw them away the moment experience contradicts them is the next.
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It is art that makes life, and I know of no substitute whatsoever for the force and beauty of its process.
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The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them.
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To kill time is not murder, it's suicide.
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A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
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An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
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