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The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.

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
Life
Determine
Discovery
Circumstances
Attitude
Century
Greatest
Quality
Elderly
Mind
Determines

More quotes by William James

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Ideas are so much flat psychological surface unless some mirrored matter gives them cognitive lustre. This is why as a pragmatistI have so carefully posited 'reality' ab initio, and why throughout my whole discussion, I remain an epistemologist realist.
William James
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That which is most personal, is most interesting.
William James
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Our life is always deeper than we know, is always more divine than it seems, and hence we are able to survive degradations and despairs which otherwise must engulf us.
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If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.
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The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
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Act the part and you will become the part.
William James
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Anything you may hold firmly in your imagination can be yours.
William James
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Philosophy is an unusually stubborn attempt to think clearly.
William James
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Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.
William James
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All natural goods perish. Riches take wings fame is a breath love is a cheat youth and health and pleasure vanish.
William James
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He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
William James
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To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teacher.
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Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.
William James
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Events are influenced by our very great desires.
William James
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The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.
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 war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party.
William James
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No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.
William James
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Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
William James
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Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
William James