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It is art that makes life, and I know of no substitute whatsoever for the force and beauty of its process.

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
Process
Makes
Art
Life
Whatsoever
Substitute
Substitutes
Beauty

More quotes by William James

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[T]here is very little difference between one person and another, but what little difference ther eis, is very important.
William James
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We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.
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The education of attention would be an education par excellence
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The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
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Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience they will lead him nowhere or else make false connections
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The simplest rudiment of mystical experience would seem to be that deepened sense of the significance of a maxim or formula which occasionally sweeps over one.
William James
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...These healers...my intellect has been unable to assimilate their theories....But their facts are patent and startling and anything that interferes with the multiplication of such facts, and with our freest opportunity of observing and studying them, will, I believe, be a public calamity.
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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Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.
William James
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Religions have approved themselves they have ministered to sundry vital needs which they found reigning. When they violated other needs too strongly, or when other faiths came which served the same needs better, the first religions were supplanted.
William James
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Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.
William James
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Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought.
William James
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Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
William James
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The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
William James
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Our beliefs are really rules for action.
William James
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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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There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.
William James
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Plasticity, then, in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once. Each relatively stable phase of equilibrium in such a structure is marked by what we may call a new set of habits.
William James
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Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.
William James
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Events are influenced by our very great desires.
William James