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Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life

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
Else
Practical
May
Aids
Mind
Educational
Men
Whose
Life
Philosophy
World
Literature
Adapting
Whatever
Primarily
Given
Practicals

More quotes by 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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Faith branches off the highroad before reason begins
William James
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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
William James
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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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The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party.
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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We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.
William James
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New habits can be launched.
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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All natural goods perish. Riches take wings fame is a breath love is a cheat youth and health and pleasure vanish.
William James
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Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience they will lead him nowhere or else make false connections
William James
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The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
William James
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Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
William James
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Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation.
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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Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
William James
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Everything which is demanded is by that fact a good.
William James
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... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really there, would be an irrational rule.
William James
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We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind.
William James
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We can change our circumstances by a mere change of our attitude.
William James