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Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.

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
Men
Pursuit
Connected
Memory
Memories
Philosophy
Literature
Facts
Pursuits
Good
Educational

More quotes by William James

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Few people have definitely articulated philosophies of their own. But almost everyone has his own peculiar sense of a certain total character in the universe, and of the inadequacy of fully to match it [to] the peculiar systems that he knows.
William James
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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
William James
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Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
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
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It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power.
William James
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...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that.
William James
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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible ... faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance.
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.
William James
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We do not sing because we are happy, we are happy because we sing.
William James
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The subjectivist in morals, when his moral feelings are at war with the facts about him, is always free to seek harmony by toningdown the sensitiveness of the feelings.
William James
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Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
William James
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Lets take full advantage of this discovery
William James
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The pragmatist turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns toward concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power.
William James
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The general law is that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change.
William James
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As long as there are postmen, life will have zest.
William James
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No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression, -this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget.
William James
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A purely disembodied human emotion is a nonentity.
William James
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Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
William James
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.
William James
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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