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The belief in free-will is not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence, provided you do not restrict the Providence to fulminating nothing but fatal decrees.

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
Nothing
Incompatible
Decree
Fatal
Providence
Provided
Least
Belief
Decrees
Free
Restrict

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Strength is a facade for the proud, weakness is a mask for the lazy.
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The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly.
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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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There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
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The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
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Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases, and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception of them.
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An educated memory depends on an organized system of associations and its goodness depends on two of their peculiarities: first, on the persistency of the associations and, second, on their number.
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[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.
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Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
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The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
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Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness.
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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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All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.
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The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.
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Why may we not be in the universe, as our dogs and cats are in our drawingrooms and libraries?
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Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.
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True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot
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Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
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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.
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