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The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.

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
System
Enemy
Education
Great
Thing
Ally
Make
Allies
Nervous
Instead

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Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.
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The first thing that intellect does with an object is to class it with something else.
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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible ... faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance.
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In any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome.
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In the last analysis, then, we believe that we all know and think about and talk about the same world because we believe our PERCEPTS are possessed by us in common
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Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.
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Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitative-ness.
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There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.
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Man lives for science as well as bread.
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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.
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The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.
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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
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So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky.
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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.
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We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.
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