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For the moment, what we attend to is reality.

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
Moment
Moments
Reality
Attend

More quotes by 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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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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Our beliefs and our attention are the same fact.
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.
William James
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Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
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Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.
William James
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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.
William James
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Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.
William James
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Results should not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of. They are sure to float up of their own accord from a long enough daily work at a given matter.
William James
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Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
William James
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We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
William James
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You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about.
William James
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An idea will infect another with its own emotional interest when they have become both associated together into any sort of a mental total.
William James
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I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!.
William James
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Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own kind.
William James
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Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
William James
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In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized.
William James
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The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
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We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.
William James
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Truth for us is simply a collective name for verification processes
William James