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Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitative-ness.

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
Almost
Fact
Facts
Imitative
Ness
Exclusively
Virtue

More quotes by William James

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Ingenuity in meeting and pursuing the pupil, that tact for the concrete situation, though they are the alpha and omega of the teacher's art, are things to which psychology cannot help us in the least.
William James
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If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.
William James
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To be fertile in hypotheses is the first perquisite of creativity and to be willing to throw them away the moment experience contradicts them is the next.
William James
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It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
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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Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce.
William James
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If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.
William James
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We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
William James
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Footnotes -- little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
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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Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases, and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception of them.
William James
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The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.
William James
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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
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Act the part and you will become the part.
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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Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits.
William James
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The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.
William James
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With mere good intentions hell is proverbially paved.
William James
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To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
William James
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My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
William James