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With mere good intentions hell is proverbially paved.

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
Proverbially
Paved
Intentions
Intention
Mere
Hell
Good

More quotes by William James

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The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.
William James
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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.
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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I know that you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you, and that the most interesting and important thing about you is the way in which it determines the perspective in your several worlds.
William James
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The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.
William James
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You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about.
William James
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... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.
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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Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
William James
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Only necessity understood, and bondage to the highest is identical with true freedom.
William James
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I will act as if I do make a difference.
William James
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Creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same experience again. A polyp would be a conceptual thinker if a feeling of 'Hello! thingumbob again!' ever flitted through its mind.
William James
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The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.
William James
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One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
William James
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The first lecture in psychology that I ever heard was the first I ever gave.
William James
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... the intellect, everywhere invasive, shows everywhere its shallowing effect.
William James
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Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind --without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.
William James
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So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.
William James
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Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.
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