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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
Seems
Acquaintance
Littles
Root
Little
Distinction
Matter
Hearing
Important
Roots
Men
Difference
Differences
Unlearned
Another
Carpenter
More quotes by William James
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
William James
The war against war is going to be no holiday excursion or camping party.
William James
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
William James
Science can tell us what exists but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exist, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart.
William James
Truth happens to an idea
William James
We are proud of a human nature that could be so passionately extreme, but we shrink from advising others to follow the example.
William James
When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion, action will.
William James
In any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome.
William James
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
William James
Time itself comes in drops.
William James
You perceive now, my friends, what your general or abstract duty is as teachers. Although you have to generate in your pupils a large stock of ideas, any one of which may be inhibitory, yet you must also see to it that no habitual hesitancy or paralysis of the will ensues, and that the pupil still retains his power of vigorous action.
William James
What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.
William James
The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.
William James
Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.
William James
Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
William James
It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
William James
Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
William James
Men habitually use only a small part of the power which they actually possess.
William James
The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
William James
All the daily routine of life, our dressing and undressing, the coming and going from our work or carrying through of its various operations, is utterly without mental reference to pleasure and pain, except under rarely realized conditions.
William James
