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True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.

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
True
Rationalism
Thinking
Abstraction
Named
Solution
Thinks
Solutions
Habit
Oracular
Principles
Inveterate

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A new idea is first condemned as ridiculous and then dismissed as trivial, until finally, it becomes what everybody knows.
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
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There is no being capable of a spiritual life who does not have within him a jungle. Where the wolf constantly HOWLS and the OBSCENE bird of night chatters endlessly.
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The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.
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The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
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Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.
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Our acts of voluntary attending, as brief and fitful as they are, are nevertheless momentous and critical, determining us, as they do, to higher or lower destinies.
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The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.
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If the grace of God miraculously operates, it probably operates through the subliminal door.
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Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
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To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
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The education of attention would be an education par excellence
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No living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody.
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A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
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Tell him to live by yes and no - yes to everything good, no to everything bad.
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As we take, in fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what strikes us first is this different pace of its parts. Like a bird 's life, it seems to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings.
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Results should not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of. They are sure to float up of their own accord from a long enough daily work at a given matter.
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To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
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The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other.
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Earnestness means willingness to live with energy, though energy bring pain.
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