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If WE claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp.

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
Given
Grasp
Moments
Statistics
Truth
Claim
Ever
Reasonable
Much
Claims
Men
Within
Love
Moment
Hope
Probability

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To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides
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The discovery of the power of our thoughts will prove to be the most important discovery of our time
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The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.
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The general law is that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change.
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The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly.
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The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
William James
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Our minds thus grow in spots and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in it stains the ancient mass but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.
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It is only the fundamental conceptions of psychology which are of real value to a teacher.
William James
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We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self...
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Experience, as we know, has a way of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas.
William James
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One of the greatest discoveries of our time is that a man can alter the state of their life by altering the state of their mind.
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The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.
William James
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Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive degradations and despairs which otherwise must engulf us.
William James
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An educated memory depends on an organized system of associations and its goodness depends on two of their peculiarities: first, on the persistency of the associations and, second, on their number.
William James
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Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors.
William James
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Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
William James
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Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain.
William James
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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.
William James
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The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains and the 'evolution' of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed.
William James
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Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout.
William James