Quote

The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can.

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
Speak
Spontaneous
Lost
Sovereign
Else
Conduct
Round
Cheerfully
Look
Soon
Voluntary
Nothing
Already
Cheerfulness
Feel
Path
Occasion
Make
Happiness
Cheerful

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Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.
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Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
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Serious development of the personality begins at the closet door.
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There is a voice inside which speaks and says, This is the real me!
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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
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That which is most personal, is most interesting.
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The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.
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All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.
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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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Focus on increasing service. Becoming great where you are. Pile in the wood. The heat will follow.
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How can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, the mystery, the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for him in the days when he was young and well?
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One of the greatest discoveries of our time is that a man can alter the state of their life by altering the state of their mind.
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No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression, -this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget.
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No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.
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We can act as if there were a God feel as if we were free consider Nature as if she were full of special designs lay plans as if we were to be immortal and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.
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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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Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.
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We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.
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As the brain-changes are continuous, so do all these consciousnesses melt into each other like dissolving views. Properly they are but one protracted consciousness, one unbroken stream.
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