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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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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Dogs
Cat
Library
Dog
Universe
May
Libraries
Cats

More quotes by William James

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Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to keep by force of mere inertia.
William James
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Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.
William James
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There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.
William James
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The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own particular ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.
William James
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The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
William James
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We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.
William James
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When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
William James
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Effort is a measure of a Man.
William James
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True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience
William James
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What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!
William James
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The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.
William James
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Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences
William James
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.
William James
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How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.
William James
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Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves.
William James
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It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.
William James
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Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.
William James
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Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.
William James
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Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
William James
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Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience they will lead him nowhere or else make false connections
William James