Quote

Every time a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit is worse than a chance lost it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge.

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
Without
Fine
Emotions
Resolutions
Every
Path
Instinct
Discharge
Time
Feeling
Fruit
Hinder
Chance
Worse
Glow
Future
Normal
Bearing
Lost
Works
Positively
Inspirational
Taking
Resolve
Feelings
Emotion
Practical
Evaporates

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Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.
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Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one
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Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.
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This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.
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All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
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When happiness is actually in possession, the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good can gain reality when melancholy rules. To the man actively happy, from whatever cause, evil simply cannot then and there be believed in.
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A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
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The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.
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The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them.
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A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.
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Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
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As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
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In my individual heart I fully believe my faith is as robust as yours. The trouble with your robust and full bodied faiths, however, is, that they begin to cut each others throats too soon, and for getting on in the world and establishing a modus vivendi these pestilential refinements and reasonablenesses and moderations have to creep in.
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
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Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.
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Serious development of the personality begins at the closet door.
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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
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Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.
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The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
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Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.
William James