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The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly.

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
Painful
Ugly
Attitude
Mean
Unhappiness

More quotes by William James

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We divert our attention from disease and death as much as we can the slaughterhouses are huddled out of sight and never mentioned, so that the world we recognize officially in literature and in society is a poetic fiction far handsomer, cleaner and better than the world that really is.
William James
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But it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too apt to reason as geometers would, if the latter were to say that the diameter of a circle is the same thing as its semi-circumference, because, forsooth, they terminate in the same two points.
William James
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Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
William James
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Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.
William James
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There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
William James
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There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere.
William James
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The first thing that intellect does with an object is to class it with something else.
William James
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The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
William James
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It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
William James
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Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
William James
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Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James
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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
William James
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In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman.
William James
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The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.
William James
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A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock
William James
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I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers.
William James
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Every time a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit is worse than a chance lost it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge.
William James
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Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
William James
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This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
William James
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The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist.
William James