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I myself believe that the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.

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
Evidence
Lies
Personal
Belief
Lying
Believe
Primarily
Experiences
Inner

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An idea will infect another with its own emotional interest when they have become both associated together into any sort of a mental total.
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Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
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...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that.
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Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive.
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We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God's influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.
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To be fertile in hypotheses is the first perquisite of creativity and to be willing to throw them away the moment experience contradicts them is the next.
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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.
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The prescription is that the subject must be made to show new aspects of itself to prompt new questions in a word, to change. From an unchanging subject the attention inevitably wanders away.
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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.
William James
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Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
William James
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The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us, a datum in the strict sense of the word, something we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.
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Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.
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It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
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I don't sing because I'm happy I'm happy because I sing.
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Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.
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The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James
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As the brain-changes are continuous, so do all these consciousnesses melt into each other like dissolving views. Properly they are but one protracted consciousness, one unbroken stream.
William James
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Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.
William James
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To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
William James
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The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.
William James