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[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.

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
Every
Fit
Pragmatism
Way
Demand
Combines
Life
Works
Probable
Experience
Fits
Truth
Demands
Part
Leading
Best
Test
Collectivity
Nothing
Tests
Omitted

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We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.
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Men are now proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend off subjection.
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Truth for us is simply a collective name for verification processes
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Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
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Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
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Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
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The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.
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The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.
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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.
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A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.
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Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.
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If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
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Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
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When you have broken the reality into concepts you never can reconstruct it in its wholeness.
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Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.
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You make a great, very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use.
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Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.
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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.
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A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.
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