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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible ... faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance.

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
Mean
Doubt
Theoretically
Something
Causes
Readiness
Possible
Concerning
Belief
Prosperous
Faith
Advance
Means
Issue
Stills
Cause
Still
Issues
Certified

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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
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The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything.
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Give your dreams all you've got, and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.
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My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
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The one who thinks over his experiences most, and weaves them into systematic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory.
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Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.
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There is a voice inside which speaks and says, This is the real me!
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Intellectualism' is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given.
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Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.
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The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
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The teachers of this country, one may say, have its future in their hands.
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[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.
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Better risk loss of truth than chance of error--that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field.
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We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.
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There is no being capable of a spiritual life who does not have within him a jungle. Where the wolf constantly HOWLS and the OBSCENE bird of night chatters endlessly.
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There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.
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Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own kind.
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Choose a self and stand by it.
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... I am the same personal being who in old times upon the Earth had those experiences.
William James
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When happiness is actually in possession, the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good can gain reality when melancholy rules. To the man actively happy, from whatever cause, evil simply cannot then and there be believed in.
William James