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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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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Matter
Hearing
Important
Roots
Men
Difference
Differences
Unlearned
Another
Carpenter
Seems
Acquaintance
Littles
Root
Little
Distinction
More quotes by William James
Science must constantly be reminded that her purposes are not the only purposes and that the order of uniform causation which she has use for, and is therefore right in postulating, may be enveloped in a wider order, on which she has no claim at all.
William James
Man alone of all the creatures of earth can change his own pattern. Man alone is the architect of his own destiny.
William James
There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
William James
As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate!
William James
But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion.
William James
Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
William James
The education of attention would be an education par excellence
William James
Belief creates the actual fact.
William James
You can alter your life by altering the state of your mind.
William James
My experience is what I agree to attend to.
William James
All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
William James
Every claim creates an obligation.
William James
As the brain-changes are continuous, so do all these consciousnesses melt into each other like dissolving views. Properly they are but one protracted consciousness, one unbroken stream.
William James
If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.
William James
Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
William James
We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of Prayer. Many reasons are given why we should not pray. Others give reasons why we should pray. Very little is said of the reason we do pray. The reason is simple: We pray because we cannot help praying.
William James
Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon 's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come.
William James
The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.
William James
There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.
William James
Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.
William James
