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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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We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.
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Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves.
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Life feels like a real fight - as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem.
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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.
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For I had often said that the best argument I knew for an immortal life was the existence of a man who deserved one as well as Child did.
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It seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst the Europeans talk.
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The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself lonely, most positively furthered, and most richly fed
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In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized.
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...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.
William James
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To spend life for something which outlasts it.
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Time itself comes in drops.
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Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
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The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer--and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature's particulars.
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Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
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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.
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Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.
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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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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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Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.
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The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
William James