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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
Libraries
Cats
Dogs
Cat
Library
Dog
Universe
May
More quotes by William James
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
William James
Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.
William James
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
William James
The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains and the 'evolution' of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed.
William James
He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
William James
So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.
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
A thing is important if anyone think it important.
William James
The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.
William James
If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.
William James
Our minds thus grow in spots and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in it stains the ancient mass but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.
William James
Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.
William James
Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
William James
The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind...that encounters it.
William James
Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
William James
... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really there, would be an irrational rule.
William James
Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.
William James
There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere.
William James
Real servants don't try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.
William James
Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
William James
