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Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.

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
Tell
Live
Everything
Good

More quotes by William James

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Psychology saves us from mistakes. It makes us more clear as to what we are about. We gain confidence in respect to any method which we are using as soon as we believe that it has theory as well as practice at its back.
William James
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Instinct leads, logic does but follow.
William James
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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
William James
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To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being.
William James
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If theological ideas prove to have a value for concrete life, they will be true, for pragmatism, in the sense of being good for so much. How much more they are true, will depend entirely on their relations to the other truths that also have to be acknowledged.
William James
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I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.
William James
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Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.
William James
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If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first but when once objectified in a crude shape, I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more.
William James
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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.
William James
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There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood bu those who hear it.
William James
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Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences
William James
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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.
William James
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This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
William James
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Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience
William James
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Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one
William James
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The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.
William James
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It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit.
William James
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Act in earnest and you will become earnest in all you do.
William James
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The perfection of rottenness.
William James
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Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
William James