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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
Force
War
Whole
Must
Believe
Equivalent
Way
Organized
Discipline
Community

More quotes by 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 and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God's influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.
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Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
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Our intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in a chrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the universe that engendered it.
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To kill time is not murder, it's suicide.
William James
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I don't see how an epigram, being a bolt from the blue, with no introduction or cue, ever gets itself writ.
William James
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The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them.
William James
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The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness, and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger whole.
William James
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Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.
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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If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill.
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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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Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks mental water is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a mentalfire.
William James
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Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
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The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
William James
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Footnotes -- little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
William James
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O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
William James
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A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
William James
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The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
William James
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Once you accept an idea, it's an idea whose time has come.
William James