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When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.

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
Neutralize
Undesirable
Thoughts
Emotion
Inspiration
Action

More quotes by William James

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The difference between an interesting and a tedious teacher consists in little more than the inventiveness by which the one is able to mediate these associations and connections, and in the dullness in discovering such transitions which the other shows.
William James
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So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.
William James
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To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
William James
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If you want a confidence, act as if you already have it. Try the as if technique.
William James
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We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.
William James
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In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.
William James
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To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
William James
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A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses' tails on cats' bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.
William James
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A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.
William James
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The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains and the 'evolution' of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed.
William James
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There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness.
William James
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A remarkable parallel, which I think has never been noticed, obtains between the facts of social evolution on the one hand, and of zological evolution as expounded by Mr. Darwin on the other.
William James
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It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
William James
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Footnotes -- little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
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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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
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The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The most such sciences can do is to help us to catch ourselves up and check ourselves, if we start to reason or to behave wrongly and to criticise ourselves more articulately after we have made mistakes.
William James
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A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
William James
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What a magnificent land and race is this Britain! Everything about them is of better quality than the corresponding thing in the U.S.... Yet I believe (or suspect) that ours is eventually the bigger destiny, if we can only succeed in living up to it.
William James
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Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ... the supremely thrilling excitement.
William James