Quote

Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.

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
Depend
Action
Several
Volitional
Ideas
Educational
Respectively
Firsts
Habit
Coupling
First
Depends
Inaction
Habitual
Second
Stock
Philosophy
Habits
Literature

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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
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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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In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start.
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The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.
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A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.
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Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain.
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To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
William James
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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
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No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
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We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
William James
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Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
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The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us, a datum in the strict sense of the word, something we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.
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Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.
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Faith is synonymous with working hypothesis.
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The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.
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When happiness is actually in possession, the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good can gain reality when melancholy rules. To the man actively happy, from whatever cause, evil simply cannot then and there be believed in.
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At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe.
William James
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An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must conform to reality in order to be true
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To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
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There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood bu those who hear it.
William James