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So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.

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
Discipline
Community
Force
War
Whole
Must
Believe
Equivalent
Way
Organized

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It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
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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
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The truth remains that, after adolescence has begun, words, words, words, must constitute a large part, and an always larger part as life advances, of what the human being has to learn.
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Habit is a second nature, or rather, it is 'ten times nature'.
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Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.
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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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The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.
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Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves.
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There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.
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The deepest hunger in human beings is the desire to be appreciated.
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'What would be better for us to believe!' This sounds very like a definition of truth
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Every claim creates an obligation.
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First... a new theory is attacked as absurd then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.
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Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
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To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
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We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.
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The deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appreciation.
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... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really there, would be an irrational rule.
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The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stoodthere from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest.
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