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When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.

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
Execution
Outcomes
Reached
Absolutely
Decision
Responsibility
Order
Dismiss
Care
Outcome

More quotes by William James

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The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us, a datum in the strict sense of the word, something we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.
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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A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.
William James
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Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting him to this world's life
William James
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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.
William James
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Science can tell us what exists but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exist, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart.
William James
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Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
William James
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.
William James
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If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill.
William James
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History is a bath of blood.
William James
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It seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst the Europeans talk.
William James
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The worst thing that can happen to a good teacher is to get a bad conscience about her profession because she feels herself hopeless as a psychologist.
William James
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The suspicion is in the air nowadays that the superiority of one of our formulas to another may not consist so much in its literal 'objectivity,' as in subjective qualities like its usefulness, its 'elegance,' or its congruity with our residual beliefs
William James
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James
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'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.
William James
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Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
William James
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Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
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
William James
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To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
William James
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The only function that one experience can perform is to lead into another experience and the only fulfillment we can speak of isthe reaching of a certain experienced end. When one experience leads to (or can lead to) the same end as another, they agree in function.
William James