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Religion . . . shall mean for us the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude.

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
Solitude
Experiences
Shall
Religion
Individual
Feelings
Mean
Individuality
Men
Acts

More quotes by William James

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It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit.
William James
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Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late.
William James
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The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.
William James
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Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
William James
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If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.
William James
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Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
William James
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The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that HE was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two.
William James
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Truth in our ideas means their power to work.
William James
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Great indeed is Fear but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual energy.
William James
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The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful as the case may be.
William James
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In the matter of belief, we are all extreme conservatives.
William James
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We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
William James
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Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life
William James
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That which is most personal, is most interesting.
William James
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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.
William James
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Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.
William James
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The general law is that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change.
William James
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Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or being.
William James
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The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.
William James
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A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians.
William James