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Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being but how or why, no mortal may ever know.

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
Science
Mortal
Nature
Flames
Two
Mortals
Indubitably
Together
Hang
Unfathomable
May
Determine
Designs
Ever
Design
Mixed
Mind
Brain
Flame
Things
Natural
Clay

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If an unusual necessity forces us onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain point, when, gradually or suddenly, it passes away and we are fresher than before!
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We must not just patch and tinker with life. We must keep renewing it. Embrace novelty and uniqueness.
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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.
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We hear the words we have spoken, feel our own blow as we give it, or read in the bystander's eyes the success or failure of our conduct.
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I wished by treating Psychology like a natural science, to help her become one.
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Neither moral relations nor the moral law can swing in vacuo. Their only habitat can be a mind which feels them and no world composed of merely physical facts can possibly be a world to which ethical propositions apply.
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To leap across an abyss, one is better served by faith than doubt.
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A thing is important if anyone think it important.
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To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being.
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Impulse without reason is enough, and reason without impulse is a poor makeshift.
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Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
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Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions.
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There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there long enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking.
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Psychology ought certainly to give the teacher radical help.
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
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The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.
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Smitten as we are with the vision of social righteousness, a God indifferent to everything but adulation, and full of partiality for his individual favorites, lacks an essential element of largeness.
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Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do.
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Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
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