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Faith is one of the forces by which men live, and the total absence of it means collapse

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
Means
Live
Mean
Collapse
Men
Total
Forces
Absence
Faith
Force

More quotes by William James

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The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
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If you want a confidence, act as if you already have it. Try the as if technique.
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If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.
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Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
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An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
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We hear the words we have spoken, feel our own blow as we give it, or read in the bystander's eyes the success or failure of our conduct.
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General scepticism is the live mental attitude of refusing to conclude. It is a permanent torpor of the will, renewing itself in detail towards each successive thesis that offers, and you can no more kill it off by logic than you can kill off obstinacy or practical joking.
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The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly.
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Habit is the great flywheel of society.
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Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit.
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Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.
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It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
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The deepest hunger in human beings is the desire to be appreciated.
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The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have been flown for religious ideals.
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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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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.
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To neglect the wise sayings of great thinkers is to deny ourselves the truest education.
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My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
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An educated memory depends on an organized system of associations and its goodness depends on two of their peculiarities: first, on the persistency of the associations and, second, on their number.
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We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.
William James