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

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A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.
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...These healers...my intellect has been unable to assimilate their theories....But their facts are patent and startling and anything that interferes with the multiplication of such facts, and with our freest opportunity of observing and studying them, will, I believe, be a public calamity.
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Pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or distributively. Monism thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only form that is rational.
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Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.
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Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
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The deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appreciation.
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Belief creates the actual fact.
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Choose a self and stand by it.
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In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we believe our PERCEPTS are possessed by us in common
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Your hopes, dreams and aspirations are legitimate. They are trying to take you airborne, above the clouds, above the storms, if you only let them.
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Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
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If you want a confidence, act as if you already have it. Try the as if technique.
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So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end...and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.
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The teachers of this country, one may say, have its future in their hands.
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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.
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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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You do not sing because you're happy, you're happy because you sing.
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There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
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Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.
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The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can.
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