Quote

The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.

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
Present
Instant
Either
Object
Field
Call
Subject
Times
Fields
Experience
Subjects
Objects
Potentially
Pure
Virtually

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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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Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
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Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.
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To kill time is not murder, it's suicide.
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Man lives for science as well as bread.
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Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true.
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Faith is one of the forces by which men live, and the total absence of it means collapse
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Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
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Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain.
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
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The one who thinks over his experiences most, and weaves them into systematic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory.
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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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Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.
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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous.
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The mind of your own enemy, the pupil, is working away from you, as keenly and eagerly as is the mind of the commander on the other side from the scientific general. Just what the respective enemies want and think, and what they know or do not know, are as hard things for the teachers as for the general to find out.
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To spend life for something which outlasts it.
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Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.
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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
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Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation.
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Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.
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