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My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.

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
Shall
Free
Firsts
First
Believe

More quotes by William James

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In my individual heart I fully believe my faith is as robust as yours. The trouble with your robust and full bodied faiths, however, is, that they begin to cut each others throats too soon, and for getting on in the world and establishing a modus vivendi these pestilential refinements and reasonablenesses and moderations have to creep in.
William James
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The perfection of rottenness.
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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Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitative-ness.
William James
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Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
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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If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have been among the most important. . . . It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, especially when a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun.
William James
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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.
William James
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The difference between objective and subjective extension is one of relation to a context solely.
William James
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To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
William James
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The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.
William James
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Man lives for science as well as bread.
William James
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Results should not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of. They are sure to float up of their own accord from a long enough daily work at a given matter.
William James
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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.
William James
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The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
William James
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Your hopes, dreams and aspirations are legitimate. They are trying to take you airborne, above the clouds, above the storms, if you only let them.
William James
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A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians.
William James
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To neglect the wise sayings of great thinkers is to deny ourselves the truest education.
William James
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When you have broken the reality into concepts you never can reconstruct it in its wholeness.
William James
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When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.
William James