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Volition . . . takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness.

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
Takes
Educational
Literature
Field
Place
Fields
Ideas
Number
Volition
Depends
Conflicting
Consciousness
Systems
Numbers
Complexes
Philosophy
Complex

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Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our own mind.
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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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Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves.
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We do not sing because we are happy, we are happy because we sing.
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On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.
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Men habitually use only a small part of the power which they actually possess.
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Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one
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A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
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The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!
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The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption.
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You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at work within the stream of your experience.
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Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
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To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
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An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must conform to reality in order to be true
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I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.
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The man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten, simply hold their own.
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The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will... An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.
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How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young-or slender.
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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.
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To give the theory plenty of 'rope' and see if it hangs itself eventually is better tactics than to choke it off at the outset b abstract accusations of self-contradiction
William James