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The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as its existence.

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
World
Stopping
Clock
Keeps
Existence
Possible
Thought
Nonexistence
Going
Unrest
Never
Metaphysics

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What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!
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There is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality and they may after all be the best key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.
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There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.
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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.
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Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
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The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.
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For the moment, what we attend to is reality.
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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.
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My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
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Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life
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There is a stream, a succession of states, or waves, or fields (or whatever you please to call them), of knowledge, of feeling, of desire, of deliberation, etc., that constantly pass and repass, and that constitute our inner life.
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We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.
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How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young-or slender.
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An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: There is very little difference between one man and another but what little there is, is very important. This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.
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Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling.
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The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.
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