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As the art of reading (after a certain stage in one's education) isthe art of skipping, so the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

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
Education
Knowing
Reading
Art
Isthe
Certain
Skipping
Overlook
Wise
Stage

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Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically has walked.
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To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
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Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
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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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No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.
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There are two lives, the natural and the spiritual, and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other.
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Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
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To neglect the wise sayings of great thinkers is to deny ourselves the truest education.
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A winner's attitude: it may be difficult, but it's possible. A loser's attitude: It may be possible, but it's too difficult.
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.
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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.
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The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.
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The difference between objective and subjective extension is one of relation to a context solely.
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True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.
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An enormous mass of experience, both of homeopathic doctors and their patients, is invoked in favor of the efficacy of these remedies and doses.
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Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses power of various sorts which he habitually fails to use.
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It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
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Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
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Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.
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The first lecture in psychology that I ever heard was the first I ever gave.
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