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Men's activities are occupied into ways -- in grappling with external circumstances and in striving to set things at one in their own topsy-turvy mind.
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
Way
Striving
Things
Activities
Men
External
Strive
Activity
Turvy
Circumstances
Topsy
Ways
Grappling
Mind
Occupied
More quotes by William James
True ideas lead us into useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. They lead to consistency, stability and flowing human intercourse.
William James
One hears of the mechanical equivalent of heat. What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war: something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved itself to be incompatible.
William James
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
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
William James
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
Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
William James
The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.
William James
We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.
William James
Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
William James
A thing is important if anyone think it important.
William James
To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
William James
We may be in the Universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.
William James
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
William James
The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
William James
The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.
William James
Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
William James
Focus on increasing service. Becoming great where you are. Pile in the wood. The heat will follow.
William James
The war-function has grasped us so far but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.
William James
A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
William James
The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.
William James
