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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
Belief
Decrees
Free
Restrict
Nothing
Incompatible
Decree
Fatal
Providence
Provided
Least

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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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Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.
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Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
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A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
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Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don't want to do
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Smitten as we are with the vision of social righteousness, a God indifferent to everything but adulation, and full of partiality for his individual favorites, lacks an essential element of largeness.
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Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
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The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.
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In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start.
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A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses' tails on cats' bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.
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The power to move the world is in the subconcious mind
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Real servants don't try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.
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The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other.
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The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
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If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
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To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
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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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Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.
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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.
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But when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence and can make their exercises interesting, whilst others simply cannot. And psychology and general pedagogy here confess their failure, and hand things over to the deeper spring of human personality to conduct the task.
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