Quote

The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer--and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature's particulars.

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
World
Idle
Designer
Design
Question
Study
Whether
Nature
Particulars
Real
Revealed

More quotes by William James

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Man, biologically considered ... is simply the most formidable of all beasts of prey, and, indeed, the only one that preys systematically on its own kind.
William James
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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.
William James
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Experience, as we know, has a way of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas.
William James
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Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
William James
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So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.
William James
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There must always be a discrepncy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing
William James
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We can act as if there were a God feel as if we were free consider Nature as if she were full of special designs lay plans as if we were to be immortal and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.
William James
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All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
William James
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Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or being.
William James
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Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
William James
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If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.
William James
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
William James
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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.
William James
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I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are IMPOSSIBLE.
William James
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It is art that makes life, and I know of no substitute whatsoever for the force and beauty of its process.
William James
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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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The mind is made up by what it feeds upon.
William James
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A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
William James
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The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as its existence.
William James
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All religions begin with the cry Help.
William James