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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
Would
Thoroughly
Universe
Thing

More quotes by William James

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We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.
William James
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
William James
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The perfection of rottenness.
William James
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He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
William James
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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.
William James
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[T]here is very little difference between one person and another, but what little difference ther eis, is very important.
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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The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist.
William James
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The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
William James
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No one sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of detail extends.
William James
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Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience they will lead him nowhere or else make false connections
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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Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James
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Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not by dislikes and disdains under all misleading wrappings it pounces unerringly upon the human core.
William James
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...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.
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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The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
William James
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If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have been among the most important. . . . It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, especially when a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun.
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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A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
William James