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Intellectualism' is the belief that our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given.

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
Upon
Ascertaining
Comes
Intellectualism
Given
Contents
Power
Determining
Character
Complete
Mind
Duty
World
Already
Belief

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In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start.
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History is a bath of blood.
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The belief in free-will is not in the least incompatible with the belief in Providence, provided you do not restrict the Providence to fulminating nothing but fatal decrees.
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Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.
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All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.
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A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all.
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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.
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Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought.
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With no attempt there can be no failure with no failure no humiliation.
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Considering the inner fitness of things, one would rather think that the very first act of a will endowed with freedom should be to sustain the belief in the freedom itself.
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Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
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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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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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The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind...that encounters it.
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That which is most personal, is most interesting.
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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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...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.
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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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Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are the supreme goods for man.
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The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
William James