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Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.

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
Men
Excess
Exuberant
Chief
Prunes
Chiefs
Undo
Waste
Extravagance
Lies
Propensity
Difference
Brutes
Differences
Subjective
Prune
Lying
Sober
Propensities

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But when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence and can make their exercises interesting, whilst others simply cannot. And psychology and general pedagogy here confess their failure, and hand things over to the deeper spring of human personality to conduct the task.
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We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God's influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.
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... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.
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Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being but how or why, no mortal may ever know.
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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.
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No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.
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The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.
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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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When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
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Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
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Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.
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The university most worthy of rational admiration is that one in which your lonely thinker can feel himself lonely, most positively furthered, and most richly fed
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I don't see how an epigram, being a bolt from the blue, with no introduction or cue, ever gets itself writ.
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The subjectivist in morals, when his moral feelings are at war with the facts about him, is always free to seek harmony by toningdown the sensitiveness of the feelings.
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Knowledge about life is one thing effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
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