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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
Responsibility
Order
Dismiss
Care
Outcome
Execution
Outcomes
Reached
Absolutely
Decision

More quotes by William James

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An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes or ears and in no way modifies his active life, is an impression gone to waste. It is physiologically incomplete... Its motor consequences are what clinch it.
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The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.
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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.
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We with our lives are like islands in the sea... The islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
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To leap across an abyss, one is better served by faith than doubt.
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Positive images of the future are a powerful and magnetic force... They draw us on and energize us, give us courage and will to take on important initiatives. Negative images of the future also have a magnetism. They pull the spirit downward in the path of despair.
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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Ideas are so much flat psychological surface unless some mirrored matter gives them cognitive lustre. This is why as a pragmatistI have so carefully posited 'reality' ab initio, and why throughout my whole discussion, I remain an epistemologist realist.
William James
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No decision is, in itself, a decision.
William James
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
William James
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Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.
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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The perfection of rottenness.
William James
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Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to keep by force of mere inertia.
William James
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A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
William James
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Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul None is more gladdening or fruitful than to know You can regenerate and make yourself what you will.
William James
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Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
William James
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Our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout.
William James
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Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
William James
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Life feels like a real fight - as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem.
William James