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To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.

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
Thoroughly
Universe
Thing
Would

More quotes by William James

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Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.
William James
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Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.
William James
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Events are influenced by our very great desires.
William James
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The stream of thought flows on but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion. Of some, no memory survives the instant of their passage. Of others, it is confined to a few moments, hours or days. Others, again, leave vestiges which are indestructible, and by means of which they may be recalled as long as life endures.
William James
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A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.
William James
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It is as if there were in the human consciousness a sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call something there, more deep and more general than any of the special and particular senses by which the current psychology supposes existent realities to be originally revealed.
William James
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Focus on increasing service. Becoming great where you are. Pile in the wood. The heat will follow.
William James
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An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must conform to reality in order to be true
William James
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I will act as if I do make a difference.
William James
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To neglect the wise sayings of great thinkers is to deny ourselves the truest education.
William James
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We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.
William James
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It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.
William James
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In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at one age, and other kinds of conception at a later age.
William James
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We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone until those smiling possibilities are dead... By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities.
William James
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Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.
William James
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Individuality is founded in feeling
William James
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Our beliefs are really rules for action.
William James
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The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.
William James
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The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.
William James
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The first thing that intellect does with an object is to class it with something else.
William James