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The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

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
Soul
Surroundings
Stronger

More quotes by William James

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To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
William James
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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.
William James
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Everything which is demanded is by that fact a good.
William James
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Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
William James
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No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
William James
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
William James
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The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will... An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.
William James
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I don't sing because I'm happy I'm happy because I sing.
William James
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The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
William James
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...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.
William James
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The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James
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The question of free will is insoluble on strictly psychological grounds.
William James
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You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at work within the stream of your experience.
William James
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The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!
William James
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Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.
William James
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All that we need explicitly to note is that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the material interesting and the less the kind of attention requiring effort is appealed to the more smoothly and pleasantly the classroom work goes on.
William James
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In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we believe our PERCEPTS are possessed by us in common
William James
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If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
William James
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Agisci come se quel che fai, facesse la differenza. La fa!
William James
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There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
William James