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Considering the inner fitness of things, one would rather think that the very first act of a will endowed with freedom should be to sustain the belief in the freedom itself.
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
Would
Philosophy
Think
Literature
Thinking
Belief
Endowed
Rather
Fitness
Freedom
Sustain
Firsts
Considering
First
Educational
Things
Inner
More quotes by William James
The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that HE was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two.
William James
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James
You do not sing because you're happy, you're happy because you sing.
William James
The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
William James
We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
William James
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
William James
This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.
William James
Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
William James
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
Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it opens outthe widest vistas. It 'bakes no bread', as has been said, but it can inspire our souls with courage.
William James
It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit.
William James
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
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
William James
Impulse without reason is enough, and reason without impulse is a poor makeshift.
William James
The desire to gain wealth and the fear to lose it are our chief breeders of cowardice and propagators of corruption.
William James
We must not just patch and tinker with life. We must keep renewing it. Embrace novelty and uniqueness.
William James
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.
William James
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.
William James
Individuality is founded in feeling
William James
The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.
William James
