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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
Reading
Art
Isthe
Certain
Skipping
Overlook
Wise
Stage
Education
Knowing

More quotes by William James

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Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morning to our lying down each night.
William James
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We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self...
William James
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Everything which is demanded is by that fact a good.
William James
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
William James
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In its broadest term, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to it.
William James
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Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.
William James
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Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
William James
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Most unhappiness is caused because people listen to themselves... instead of talking to themselves.
William James
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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.
William James
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All natural goods perish. Riches take wings fame is a breath love is a cheat youth and health and pleasure vanish.
William James
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Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.
William James
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The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
William James
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Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.
William James
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When you have broken the reality into concepts you never can reconstruct it in its wholeness.
William James
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All of our life is but a mass of small habits - practical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual - that bear us irresistibly toward our destiny.
William James
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The stream of thought flows on but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion. Of some, no memory survives the instant of their passage. Of others, it is confined to a few moments, hours or days. Others, again, leave vestiges which are indestructible, and by means of which they may be recalled as long as life endures.
William James
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The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.
William James
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Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.
William James
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The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful as the case may be.
William James
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What a magnificent land and race is this Britain! Everything about them is of better quality than the corresponding thing in the U.S.... Yet I believe (or suspect) that ours is eventually the bigger destiny, if we can only succeed in living up to it.
William James