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A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual's desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock

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
Truth
Proportion
Novel
Opinion
Belief
Gratifies
Desire
Assimilate
Individual
Counts
Experience
Stock
True
Beliefs

More quotes by William James

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I am tired of the position of the dried-up critic and doubter. The believer is the true full man. (from a biography of James by Robert D. Richardson)
William James
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So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end...and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.
William James
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Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation.
William James
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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
William James
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It is so human a book that I don't see how belief in its divine authority can survive the reading of it.
William James
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A good hypothesis in science must have other properties than those of the phenomenon it is immediately invoked to explain, otherwise it is not prolific enough.
William James
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There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood bu those who hear it.
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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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can. . . . The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.
William James
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The God of many men is little more than their court of appeal against the damnatory judgment passed on their failures by the opinion of the world.
William James
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Our beliefs and our attention are the same fact.
William James
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The man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten, simply hold their own.
William James
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Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.
William James
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The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer--and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature's particulars.
William James
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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
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I take it that no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide.
William James
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New habits can be launched.
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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... if we take the universe of 'fitting,' countless coats 'fit' backs, and countless boots 'fit' feet, on which they are not practically fitted countless stones 'fit' gaps in walls into which no one seeks to fit them actually. In the same way countless opinions 'fit' realities, and countless truths are valid, tho no thinker ever thinks them.
William James
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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.
William James