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Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?

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
Planet
Planets
Moonlit
Evidence
Certitude
Fine
Doubtless
Science
Visited
Found
Objective
Dream
Objectives
Play
Ideals

More quotes by William James

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As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts. Like a bird 's life, it seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings.
William James
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To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
William James
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Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
William James
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Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
William James
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Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
William James
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Everyone knows that on any given day there are energies slumbering in him which the incitement's of that day do not call forth. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. The human individual usually lives far within his limits.
William James
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There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.
William James
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Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.
William James
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It is as important to cultivate your silence power as your word power.
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With mere good intentions hell is proverbially paved.
William James
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Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing.
William James
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An enormous mass of experience, both of homeopathic doctors and their patients, is invoked in favor of the efficacy of these remedies and doses.
William James
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Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein.
William James
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Better risk loss of truth than chance of error--that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field.
William James
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We can change our circumstances by a mere change of our attitude.
William James
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A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
William James
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a man does not cry because he is sad, he is sad because he cries
William James
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He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
William James
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When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.
William James
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Act in earnest and you will become earnest in all you do.
William James