Quote

The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!

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
Art
Miles
Preciousness
Seems
Absolutely
Quiver
Best
Difference
Verbal
Firsts
Second
Shade
Matter
Hair
Inward
First
Differences
Definition
Kind
Point
Definitions
Things
Away
Escape

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Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.
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Truth is what will be steadily borne out by subsequent experience
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... I am the same personal being who in old times upon the Earth had those experiences.
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I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.
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Agisci come se quel che fai, facesse la differenza. La fa!
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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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To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides
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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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Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.
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The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
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The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
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The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.
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Strength is a facade for the proud, weakness is a mask for the lazy.
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Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists.
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A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
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I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is true so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives
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Truth happens to an idea
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