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For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.

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
Life
Service
Morality
Highest
Sort
Volunteers
Politics
Volunteer
War
Patriotism
Political
Cosmic
Also
Calls

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If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.
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Impulse without reason is enough, and reason without impulse is a poor makeshift.
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What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.
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Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences
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In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized.
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All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
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To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
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Events are influenced by our very great desires.
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This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
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Most men's friendships are too inarticulate.
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When you have broken the reality into concepts you never can reconstruct it in its wholeness.
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The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.
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If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.
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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
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Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
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If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.
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If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
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An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
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Individuality is founded in feeling and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.
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The subjectivist in morals, when his moral feelings are at war with the facts about him, is always free to seek harmony by toningdown the sensitiveness of the feelings.
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