Quote

Mental fire is what won't burn real sticks mental water is what won't necessarily (though of course it may) put out even a mentalfire.

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
Courses
Course
Though
Water
Burn
May
Sticks
Real
Necessarily
Even
Mental
Fire

More quotes by William James

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The thinker philosophizes as the lover loves. Even were the consequences not only useless but harmful, he must obey his impulse.
William James
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The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.
William James
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I have often thought the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it comes upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: This is the real me!.
William James
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To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
William James
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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
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There is a voice inside which speaks and says, This is the real me!
William James
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How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young-or slender.
William James
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A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians.
William James
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Strength is a facade for the proud, weakness is a mask for the lazy.
William James
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The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.
William James
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To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides
William James
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Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
William James
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In all primary school work the principle of multiple impressions is well recognized.
William James
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The intellectual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of conceptual order for the perceptual order in which his experience originally comes.
William James
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Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
William James
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Instinct leads, logic does but follow.
William James
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Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.
William James
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It is only the fundamental conceptions of psychology which are of real value to a teacher.
William James
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Hogamus, higamous Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamous Woman monogamous.
William James
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True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot
William James