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The mind is made up by what it feeds upon.

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
Mind
Thinking
Feeds
Upon
Made

More quotes by William James

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My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
William James
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Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies.
William James
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If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
William James
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Religion must be considered vindicated in a certain way from the attacks of her critics.
William James
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Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.
William James
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One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
William James
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Results should not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of. They are sure to float up of their own accord from a long enough daily work at a given matter.
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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Ingenuity in meeting and pursuing the pupil, that tact for the concrete situation, though they are the alpha and omega of the teacher's art, are things to which psychology cannot help us in the least.
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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Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.
William James
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We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
William James
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Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience
William James
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To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
William James
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There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.
William James
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Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life.
William James
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Every time a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing practical fruit is worse than a chance lost it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge.
William James
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The ultimate test of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.
William James
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When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.
William James
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Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.
William James