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If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.

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
Single
Law
Show
Crows
White
Mustn
Wish
Crow
Black
Upset
Shows
Seek
Enough
Prove

More quotes by William James

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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
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Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience
William James
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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
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An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
William James
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Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.
William James
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Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses power of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.
William James
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Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
William James
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Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
William James
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In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman.
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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All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.
William James
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Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing.
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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Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.
William James
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Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own kind.
William James
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Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.
William James
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A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.
William James
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A man of sense is never discouraged by difficulties he redoubles his industry and his diligence, he perseveres and infallibly prevails at last.
William James
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Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors.
William James
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Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge.
William James