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On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.

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
Works
Principles
Word
Satisfactorily
Sense
Widest
True
Theism
Hypothesis
God

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Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.
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There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood bu those who hear it.
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The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.
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To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
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True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.
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A purely disembodied human emotion is a nonentity.
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The exercise of prayer, in those who habitually exert it, must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal of all the pacifiers of the mind and calmers of the nerves.
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Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind --without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.
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If theological ideas prove to have a value for concrete life, they will be true, for pragmatism, in the sense of being good for so much. How much more they are true, will depend entirely on their relations to the other truths that also have to be acknowledged.
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To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.
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We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.
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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.
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If WE claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp.
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Formula to live your dream: 1. Be bold. 2. Begin now, 3. No exceptions.
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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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To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.
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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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What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise.
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No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression, -this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to forget.
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Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.
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