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Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.

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
Confidence
Assures
Beginning
Undertaking
Decision
Undertakings
Successful
Doubtful
Belief
Outcome
Success
Venture
Thing
Outcomes
Believe
Entrepreneur

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As the art of reading (after a certain stage in one's education) isthe art of skipping, so the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
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Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.
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No decision is, in itself, a decision.
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There are 3 rules to follow if you want to change (1) Start immediately, (2) Do it flamboyantly, (3) No exceptions.
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Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
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Psychology saves us from mistakes. It makes us more clear as to what we are about. We gain confidence in respect to any method which we are using as soon as we believe that it has theory as well as practice at its back.
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The truth remains that, after adolescence has begun, words, words, words, must constitute a large part, and an always larger part as life advances, of what the human being has to learn.
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Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.
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An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
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What holds attention determines action.
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An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must conform to reality in order to be true
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I will act as if I do make a difference.
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Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.
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Truth is something that happens to an idea.
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Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
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The power to move the world is in the subconcious mind
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All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
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Out of time we cut 'days' and 'nights', 'summers' and 'winters.' We say what, each part of the sensible continuum is, and all these abstract whats are concepts. The intelletual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of a conceptual order for the persceptual order in which his experience originally comes.
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There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
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The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly.
William James