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Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.

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
Sort
Acting
Inhabit
Universe
Attending
Action
Chooses
Way
Optimistic
Things
Literally
Appear
Shall

More quotes by William James

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The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
William James
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No decision is, in itself, a decision.
William James
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Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James
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We divert our attention from disease and death as much as we can the slaughterhouses are huddled out of sight and never mentioned, so that the world we recognize officially in literature and in society is a poetic fiction far handsomer, cleaner and better than the world that really is.
William James
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The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
William James
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True ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. They lead to consistency, stability and flowing human intercourse.
William James
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All natural goods perish. Riches take wings fame is a breath love is a cheat youth and health and pleasure vanish.
William James
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The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
William James
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A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.
William James
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The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself lonely, most positively furthered, and most richly fed
William James
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Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
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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.
William James
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Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don't want to do
William James
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The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.
William James
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The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us, a datum in the strict sense of the word, something we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.
William James
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Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
William James
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Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
William James
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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
William James
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Why may we not be in the universe, as our dogs and cats are in our drawingrooms and libraries?
William James
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If any one phrase could gather its (religion's) universal message, that phrase would be, - All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever the appearances may suggest.
William James