Quote

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. ...Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.

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
Ever
Vices
Stroke
Little
Scientific
Undone
Nothing
Leaves
Spinning
Every
Fate
Strokes
Good
Virtue
Scar
Never
Evil
Strict
Character
Smallest
Fates
Littles
Vice
Wiped

More quotes by William James

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Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks mental water is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a mentalfire.
William James
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Act the part and you will become the part.
William James
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Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.
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Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
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Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.
William James
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So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.
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Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are the supreme goods for man.
William James
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When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
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Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul None is more gladdening or fruitful than to know You can regenerate and make yourself what you will.
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What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!
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Belief creates the actual fact.
William James
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The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of the commander on the other side from the scientific general. Just what the respective enemies want and think, and what they know or do not know, are as hard things for the teachers as for the general to find out.
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The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
William James
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An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of revelation.
William James
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But facts are facts, and if we only get enough of them theyare sure to combine.
William James
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Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.
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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We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.
William James
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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
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True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience
William James