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He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
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
Unique
Refuses
Loses
Encouraging
Choices
Encouragement
Opportunity
Prize
Inspirational
Surely
Failed
Refuse
Embrace
Opportunist
More quotes by William James
Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.
William James
The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.
William James
Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.
William James
To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
William James
A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
William James
...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that.
William James
Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitement's of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. The human individual usually lives far within his limits.
William James
[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.
William James
The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.
William James
In my individual heart I fully believe my faith is as robust as yours. The trouble with your robust and full bodied faiths, however, is, that they begin to cut each others throats too soon, and for getting on in the world and establishing a modus vivendi these pestilential refinements and reasonablenesses and moderations have to creep in.
William James
If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
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
If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have been among the most important. . . . It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, especially when a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun.
William James
Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.
William James
An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: There is very little difference between one man and another but what little there is, is very important. This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.
William James
To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
William James
Man lives for science as well as bread.
William James
There is but one indefectibly certain truth , and that is the truth that pyrrhonistic scepticism itself leaves standing, the truth that the present phenomenon of consciousness exists.
William James
The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
William James
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
William James
