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Serious development of the personality begins at the closet door.

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
Doors
Development
Fashion
Style
Closet
Serious
Closets
Begins
Door
Personality

More quotes by William James

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We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
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Most men's friendships are too inarticulate.
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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.
William James
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...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that.
William James
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But when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence and can make their exercises interesting, whilst others simply cannot. And psychology and general pedagogy here confess their failure, and hand things over to the deeper spring of human personality to conduct the task.
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'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.
William James
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That which is most personal, is most interesting.
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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The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us, a datum in the strict sense of the word, something we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.
William James
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All religions begin with the cry Help.
William James
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Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them, or they may only have dreamed or imagined they did so.
William James
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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.
William James
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The strenuous life tastes better
William James
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Footnotes -- little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
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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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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Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
William James
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Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.
William James
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The suspicion is in the air nowadays that the superiority of one of our formulas to another may not consist so much in its literal 'objectivity,' as in subjective qualities like its usefulness, its 'elegance,' or its congruity with our residual beliefs
William James
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Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James