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To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.

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
Relief
Blessed
Internet
Give
Giving
Ratified
Pretensions
Pretension
Deception

More quotes by William James

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A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.
William James
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Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
William James
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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.
William James
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There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.
William James
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The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
William James
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I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.
William James
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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.
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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Faith is one of the forces by which men live, and the total absence of it means collapse
William James
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Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.
William James
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The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.
William James
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All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.
William James
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The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.
William James
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Equality is attainable as long as you are part of the majority.
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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'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.
William James
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All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.
William James
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Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
William James
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Life feels like a real fight - as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem.
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