Quote

Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ... the supremely thrilling excitement.

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
Men
Thrilling
Time
Thrill
Habits
Excitement
Indeed
Habit
Excitements
Lives
Immemorial
War
Supremely

More quotes by William James

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The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
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There is no being capable of a spiritual life who does not have within him a jungle. Where the wolf constantly HOWLS and the OBSCENE bird of night chatters endlessly.
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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.
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A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
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Intellectualism' is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given.
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Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences
William James
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It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.
William James
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But petitional prayer is only one department of prayer and if we take the word in the wider sense as meaning every kind of inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine, we can easily see that scientific criticism leaves it untouched. Prayer in this wide sense is the very soul and essence of religion.
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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.
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Evil is a disease and worry over disease is itself an additional form of disease, which only adds to the original complaint.
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There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
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The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stoodthere from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest.
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No living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody.
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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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Lay plans as if we were to be immortal.
William James
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Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience they will lead him nowhere or else make false connections
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A great idea goes through three stages on its way to acceptance: 1) it is dismissed as nonsense, 2) it is acknowledged as true, but insignificant, 3) finally, it is seen to be important, but not really anything new.
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It would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the scenery there was from that in his own.
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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
William James
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If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.
William James