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Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.
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
Seems
Seriously
States
Smile
Take
Humor
Mind
Philosophy
Good
Takes
Always
Talk
State
Philosophic
Nature
Maintain
More quotes by William James
Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being but how or why, no mortal may ever know.
William James
The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that HE was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two.
William James
The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.
William James
Men are now proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend off subjection.
William James
There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
William James
The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.
William James
It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
William James
A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
William James
The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.
William James
The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.
William James
It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit.
William James
The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other.
William James
Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
William James
As Charles Lamb says, there is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident, so I now say it is even nicer to make heroic decisions and to be prevented by 'circumstances beyond your control' from ever trying to execute them.
William James
Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet.
William James
Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible ... faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance.
William James
An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.
William James
As the art of reading (after a certain stage in one's education) isthe art of skipping, so the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James
Man alone of all the creatures of earth can change his own pattern. Man alone is the architect of his own destiny.
William James
The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as its existence.
William James
