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Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.

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
Wakes
Fully
Despair
Others
People

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Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
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A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
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It seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst the Europeans talk.
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There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness.
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Volition . . . takes place only when there are a number of conflicting systems of ideas, and depends on our having a complex field of consciousness.
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True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience
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In this real world of sweat and dirt, it seems to me that when a view of things is 'noble,' that ought to count as presumption against its truth, and as a philosophic disqualification. The prince of darkness may be a gentleman, as we are told he is, but whatever the God of earth and heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman.
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
William James
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The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of the commander on the other side from the scientific general. Just what the respective enemies want and think, and what they know or do not know, are as hard things for the teachers as for the general to find out.
William James
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Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.
William James
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The difference between objective and subjective extension is one of relation to a context solely.
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Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
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Great indeed is Fear but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual energy.
William James
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My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.
William James
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There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere.
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Truth for us is simply a collective name for verification processes
William James
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The same is true of Love, and the instinctive desire to please those whom we love. The teacher who succeeds in getting herself loved by the pupils will obtain results which one of a more forbidding temperament finds it impossible to secure.
William James
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Real servants don't try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.
William James
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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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The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
William James