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How many of us persist in a precipitate course which, but for a moment of heedlessness we might never have entered upon, simply because we hate to change our minds.

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
Change
Minds
Might
Simply
Many
Courses
Mind
Course
Never
Upon
Precipitate
Moment
Entered
Hate
Persist
Moments
Psychological

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The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
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I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is true so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives
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Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
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Everything which is demanded is by that fact a good.
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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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Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
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You make a great, very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use.
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As long as there are postmen, life will have zest.
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The states of consciousness are all that psychology needs to do her work with. Metaphysics or theology may prove the Soul to exist but for psychology the hypothesis of such a substantial principle of unity is superfluous.
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We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.
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The mind is made up by what it feeds upon.
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Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
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Man lives for science as well as bread.
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All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.
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The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.
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The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly.
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In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible.
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I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are IMPOSSIBLE.
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The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
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