Quote

Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own kind.

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
Kind
Systematically
Men
Formidable
Beasts
Prey
Beast
Considered
Indeed
Preys
Simply
Biologically

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When you have broken the reality into concepts you never can reconstruct it in its wholeness.
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Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ... the supremely thrilling excitement.
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Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
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Man lives for science as well as bread.
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This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
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If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.
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Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce.
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There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
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The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The most such sciences can do is to help us to catch ourselves up and check ourselves, if we start to reason or to behave wrongly and to criticise ourselves more articulately after we have made mistakes.
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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
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From all these facts there emerges a very simple abstract program for the teacher to follow in keeping the attention of the child: Begin with the line of his native interests, and offer him objects that have some immediate connection with these.
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
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Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
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Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge.
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Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.
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One of the greatest discoveries of our time is that a man can alter the state of their life by altering the state of their mind.
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Religion must be considered vindicated in a certain way from the attacks of her critics.
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Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.
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