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Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.
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
Hope
Denial
Means
Hopes
Order
Letting
Mean
Ultimate
Eternal
Spiritualism
Cutting
Theism
Simply
Materialism
Moral
Loose
More quotes by William James
Science as such assuredly has no authority, for she can only say what is, not what is not.
William James
The 'I think' which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the 'I breathe' which actually does accompany them.
William James
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.
William James
As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate!
William James
We believe as much as we can. We would believe everything if we could.
William James
Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.
William James
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
William James
The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!
William James
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
The teachers of this country, one may say, have its future in their hands.
William James
The thinker philosophizes as the lover loves. Even were the consequences not only useless but harmful, he must obey his impulse.
William James
Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
William James
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
William James
The philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos.
William James
Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.
William James
We need only in cold blood to act as if the thing in question were real and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.
William James
The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
William James
Neither moral relations nor the moral law can swing in vacuo. Their only habitat can be a mind which feels them and no world composed of merely physical facts can possibly be a world to which ethical propositions apply.
William James
Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.
William James
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