Quote

As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate!

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
Reading
Book
Hurling
Need
Feathers
Hard
Target
Needs
Resistance
Trying
Celebrate
Rule
Fiction

More quotes by William James

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The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly.
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The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons.
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
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Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves.
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The philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos.
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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
William James
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Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
William James
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To kill time is not murder, it's suicide.
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Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
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Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair.
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The man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten, simply hold their own.
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... the intellect, everywhere invasive, shows everywhere its shallowing effect.
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Every claim creates an obligation.
William James
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What a magnificent land and race is this Britain! Everything about them is of better quality than the corresponding thing in the U.S.... Yet I believe (or suspect) that ours is eventually the bigger destiny, if we can only succeed in living up to it.
William James
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a man does not cry because he is sad, he is sad because he cries
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Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought.
William James
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The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful as the case may be.
William James
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There must always be a discrepncy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing
William James
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True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas that therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as.
William James
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We hear the words we have spoken, feel our own blow as we give it, or read in the bystander's eyes the success or failure of our conduct.
William James