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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
Reality
Attend
Moment
Moments

More quotes by William James

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Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive.
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The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.
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There is a voice inside which speaks and says, This is the real me!
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Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
William James
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The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
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Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.
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The strenuous life tastes better
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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.
William James
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Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract
William James
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There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.
William James
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Creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same experience again. A polyp would be a conceptual thinker if a feeling of 'Hello! thingumbob again!' ever flitted through its mind.
William James
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Our intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in a chrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the universe that engendered it.
William James
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There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
William James
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The war-function has grasped us so far but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.
William James
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A winner's attitude: it may be difficult, but it's possible. A loser's attitude: It may be possible, but it's too difficult.
William James
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Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair.
William James
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Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.
William James
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Formula to live your dream: 1. Be bold. 2. Begin now, 3. No exceptions.
William James
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To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
William James
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The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.
William James