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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
Hear
Eyes
Bystander
Eye
Bystanders
Read
Spoken
Success
Conduct
Words
Blow
Give
Failure
Feel
Teaching

More quotes by William James

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Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
William James
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Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to keep by force of mere inertia.
William James
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To change one's life: a. Start immediately b. B. Do it flamboyantly c. No exceptions Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted.
William James
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Out of time we cut 'days' and 'nights', 'summers' and 'winters.' We say what, each part of the sensible continuum is, and all these abstract whats are concepts. The intelletual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of a conceptual order for the persceptual order in which his experience originally comes.
William James
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
William James
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In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start.
William James
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Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one
William James
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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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The deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appreciation.
William James
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Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
William James
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The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.
William James
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When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
William James
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To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teacher.
William James
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We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.
William James
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Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
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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Every claim creates an obligation.
William James
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All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.
William James
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We can change our circumstances by a mere change of our attitude.
William James
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Men habitually use only a small part of the power which they actually possess.
William James