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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
Roots
Important
Difference
Men
Differences
Unlearned
Another
Carpenter
Seems
Acquaintance
Root
Littles
Distinction
Little
Hearing
Matter

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Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce.
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It is not probable that the reader will be satisfied with any of these solutions, and contemporary philosophers, even rationalistically minded ones, have on the whole agreed that no one has intelligibly banished the mystery of fact.
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Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
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We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.
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Religion . . . shall mean for us the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude.
William James
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In the acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible.
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To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
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Hogamus, higamous Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamous Woman monogamous.
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That which is most personal, is most interesting.
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... I am the same personal being who in old times upon the Earth had those experiences.
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Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
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Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.
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The man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten, simply hold their own.
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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 aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.
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It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.
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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.
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Knowledge about life is one thing effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
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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.
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Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
William James