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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
Attend
Moment
Moments
Reality

More quotes by William James

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Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.
William James
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When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
William James
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Everything which is demanded is by that fact a good.
William James
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An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
William James
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The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will... An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.
William James
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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
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Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.
William James
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So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.
William James
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Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.
William James
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All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.
William James
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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.
William James
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To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
William James
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How many of us persist in a precipitate course which, but for a moment of heedlessness we might never have entered upon, simply because we hate to change our minds.
William James
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Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
William James
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If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.
William James
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In the matter of belief, we are all extreme conservatives.
William James
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A man of sense is never discouraged by difficulties he redoubles his industry and his diligence, he perseveres and infallibly prevails at last.
William James
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Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
William James
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Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
William James
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In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.
William James