Quote

First... a new theory is attacked as absurd then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.

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
Theory
Insignificant
Seen
Claim
Science
Absurd
True
Discovered
Firsts
Claims
First
Finally
Admitted
Important
Obvious
Adversaries
Discovery
Attacked

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Truth for us is simply a collective name for verification processes
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Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
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There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood bu those who hear it.
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We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
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Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.
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Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.
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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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Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are the supreme goods for man.
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Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.
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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.
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The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
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The greatest weapon we have to combat stress is the ability to choose our thoughts.
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Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
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Most men's friendships are too inarticulate.
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You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about.
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Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies.
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If WE claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp.
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Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
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Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.
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To give the theory plenty of 'rope' and see if it hangs itself eventually is better tactics than to choke it off at the outset b abstract accusations of self-contradiction
William James