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The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.

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
Progress
Attention
Inattention
Science
Ignoring
Mind
Factor
Vital
Factors
Mental
Function

More quotes by William James

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A winner's attitude: it may be difficult, but it's possible. A loser's attitude: It may be possible, but it's too difficult.
William James
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Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.
William James
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We with our lives are like islands in the sea... The islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
William James
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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.
William James
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An educated memory depends on an organized system of associations and its goodness depends on two of their peculiarities: first, on the persistency of the associations and, second, on their number.
William James
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The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.
William James
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Focus on increasing service. Becoming great where you are. Pile in the wood. The heat will follow.
William James
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Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life
William James
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Psychology ought certainly to give the teacher radical help.
William James
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I will act as if I do make a difference.
William James
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Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us our hour of triumph is what brings the void.
William James
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If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.
William James
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You can alter your life by altering the state of your mind.
William James
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Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
William James
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Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation.
William James
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To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides
William James
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The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.
William James
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The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
William James
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Volition . . . takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness.
William James
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Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
William James