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Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive.

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
Feels
Deeply
Mental
Seek
Attitude
Particular
Vitally
Alive
Attribute
Makes
Authenticity
Feel
Attributes

More quotes by William James

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Let anyone try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or to attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
William James
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It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.
William James
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The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind...that encounters it.
William James
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All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.
William James
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Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair.
William James
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Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.
William James
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'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.
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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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.
William James
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Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.
William James
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A good hypothesis in science must have other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked to explain, otherwise it is not prolific enough.
William James
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The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.
William James
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We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
William James
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Choose a self and stand by it.
William James
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It would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the scenery there was from that in his own.
William James
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Strength is a facade for the proud, weakness is a mask for the lazy.
William James
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As Charles Lamb says, there is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident, so I now say it is even nicer to make heroic decisions and to be prevented by 'circumstances beyond your control' from ever trying to execute them.
William James
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The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact.
William James
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Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.
William James
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There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
William James