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Since you make evil or good by your own thoughts, it is your ruling of your thoughts which proves to be your principal concern.

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
Concern
Prove
Thoughts
Since
Evil
Make
Proves
Good
Ruling
Principal

More quotes by William James

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When happiness is actually in possession, the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good can gain reality when melancholy rules. To the man actively happy, from whatever cause, evil simply cannot then and there be believed in.
William James
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... the intellect, everywhere invasive, shows everywhere its shallowing effect.
William James
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The greatest weapon we have to combat stress is the ability to choose our thoughts.
William James
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Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.
William James
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Faith is one of the forces by which men live, and the total absence of it means collapse
William James
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... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really there, would be an irrational rule.
William James
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Give up the feeling of responsibility, let go your hold, resign the care of your destiny to higher powers, be genuinely indifferent as to what becomes of it all and you will find not only that you gain a perfect inward relief, but often also, in addition, the particular goods you sincerely thought you were renouncing.
William James
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Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
William James
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Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness.
William James
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If you want a confidence, act as if you already have it. Try the as if technique.
William James
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Science can tell us what exists but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exist, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart.
William James
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Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity.
William James
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Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists.
William James
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Once you accept an idea, it's an idea whose time has come.
William James
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Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
William James
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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.
William James
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Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.
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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But when all is said and done, the fact remains that some teachers have a naturally inspiring presence and can make their exercises interesting, whilst others simply cannot. And psychology and general pedagogy here confess their failure, and hand things over to the deeper spring of human personality to conduct the task.
William James
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Materialism means simply the denial that the moral order is eternal, and the cutting off of ultimate hopes spiritualism means theaffirmation of an eternal moral order and the letting loose of hope.
William James