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When a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries.

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
Gets
Dictionary
Conditions
Temperament
Possible
Superior
Individual
Superiors
Coalesce
Best
Effective
Biographical
Kind
Condition
Dictionaries
Intellect
Psychopathic
Genius
Bipolar

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Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.
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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
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Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it opens outthe widest vistas. It 'bakes no bread', as has been said, but it can inspire our souls with courage.
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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.
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Events are influenced by our very great desires.
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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.
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An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
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Knowledge about life is one thing effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
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Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
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What holds attention determines action.
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Individuality is founded in feeling
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A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
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If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have been among the most important. . . . It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, especially when a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun.
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We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.
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To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
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Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling.
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Real servants don't try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.
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Serious development of the personality begins at the closet door.
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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.
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Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our own mind.
William James