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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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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Success
Conduct
Words
Blow
Give
Failure
Feel
Teaching
Hear
Eyes
Bystander
Eye
Bystanders
Read
Spoken

More quotes by William James

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The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness, and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger whole.
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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When a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries.
William James
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In the matter of belief, we are all extreme conservatives.
William James
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Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves.
William James
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Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or being.
William James
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It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
William James
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Pragmatism asks its usual question. Grant an idea or belief to be true, it says, what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?
William James
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Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.
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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I will act as if I do make a difference.
William James
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I don't sing because I'm happy I'm happy because I sing.
William James
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The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
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Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
William James
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Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul None is more gladdening or fruitful than to know You can regenerate and make yourself what you will.
William James
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We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition
William James
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An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears and in no way modifies his active life, is an impression gone to waste. It is physiologically incomplete... Its motor consequences are what clinch it.
William James
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The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
William James
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It is so human a book that I don't see how belief in its divine authority can survive the reading of it.
William James
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Experience, as we know, has a way of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas.
William James