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The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other.

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
Parts
Exist
Consciousness
Possible
Mutually
May
Split
Splits
Ignore
Total

More quotes by William James

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The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
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At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe.
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But it is the bane of psychology to suppose that where results are similar, processes must be the same. Psychologists are too apt to reason as geometers would, if the latter were to say that the diameter of a circle is the same thing as its semi-circumference, because, forsooth, they terminate in the same two points.
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Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.
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Humanism . . . is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new centre of interest or point of sight.
William James
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In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.
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Man alone of all the creatures of earth can change his own pattern. Man alone is the architect of his own destiny.
William James
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Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James
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The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.
William James
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The difference between objective and subjective extension is one of relation to a context solely.
William James
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Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
William James
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Men are now proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend off subjection.
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Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul None is more gladdening or fruitful than to know You can regenerate and make yourself what you will.
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Individuality is founded in feeling and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.
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.
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Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.
William James
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The states of consciousness are all that psychology needs to do her work with. Metaphysics or theology may prove the Soul to exist but for psychology the hypothesis of such a substantial principle of unity is superfluous.
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Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive.
William James
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What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.
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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.
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