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The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything.

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
Thus
Human
Everything
Humans
Serpent
Trail
Trails

More quotes by William James

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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
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It is art that makes life, and I know of no substitute whatsoever for the force and beauty of its process.
William James
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Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair.
William James
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So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.
William James
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The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that HE was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two.
William James
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From a pragmatic point of view, the difference between living against a background of foreigness (an indifferent Universe) and one of intimacy (a benevolent Universe) means the difference between a general habit of wariness and one of trust.
William James
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I will act as if I do make a difference.
William James
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It is very important that teachers should realize the importance of habit.
William James
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Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
William James
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There are 3 rules to follow if you want to change (1) Start immediately, (2) Do it flamboyantly, (3) No exceptions.
William James
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When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
William James
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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
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The greatest empiricists among us are only empiricists on reflection: when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes.
William James
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The simplest rudiment of mystical experience would seem to be that deepened sense of the significance of a maxim or formula which occasionally sweeps over one.
William James
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The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The most such sciences can do is to help us to catch ourselves up and check ourselves, if we start to reason or to behave wrongly and to criticise ourselves more articulately after we have made mistakes.
William James
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a man does not cry because he is sad, he is sad because he cries
William James
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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
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In any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome.
William James
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The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of the commander on the other side from the scientific general. Just what the respective enemies want and think, and what they know or do not know, are as hard things for the teachers as for the general to find out.
William James
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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