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A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.

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
Sense
House
Dancer
Dancing
Dance
Humor
Common

More quotes by William James

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Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it opens outthe widest vistas. It 'bakes no bread', as has been said, but it can inspire our souls with courage.
William James
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Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically has walked.
William James
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On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.
William James
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In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at one age, and other kinds of conception at a later age.
William James
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
William James
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The war-function has grasped us so far but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.
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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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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We can change our circumstances by a mere change of our attitude.
William James
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Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James
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Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought.
William James
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Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
William James
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The prescription is that the subject must be made to show new aspects of itself to prompt new questions in a word, to change. From an unchanging subject the attention inevitably wanders away.
William James
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Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience
William James
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Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.
William James
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General scepticism is the live mental attitude of refusing to conclude. It is a permanent torpor of the will, renewing itself in detail towards each successive thesis that offers, and you can no more kill it off by logic than you can kill off obstinacy or practical joking.
William James
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True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot
William James
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The teacher's prime concern should be to ingrain into the pupil that assortment of habits that shall be most useful to him throughout life. Education is for behavior, and habits are the stuff of which behavior consists.
William James
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It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power.
William James
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If WE claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp.
William James