Quote

Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night.

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
Habit
Automatic
Hundred
Habitual
Morning
Purely
Lying
Ninety
Night
Possibly
Rising
Nine
Activity

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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.
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It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
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The one who thinks over his experiences most, and weaves them into systematic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory.
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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.
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The first lecture in psychology that I ever heard was the first I ever gave.
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If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
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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.
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The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.
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A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock
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From a pragmatic point of view, the difference between living against a background of foreigness (an indifferent Universe) and one of intimacy (a benevolent Universe) means the difference between a general habit of wariness and one of trust.
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There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
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A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
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Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
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Knowledge about life is one thing effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
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Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
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The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.
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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
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The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
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In its broadest term, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to it.
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Truths emerge from facts, but they dip forward into facts again and add to them which facts again create or reveal new truth (the word is indifferent) and so on indefinitely. The 'facts' themselves meanwhile are not true. They simply are. Truth is the function of the beliefs that start and terminate among them.
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