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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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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 mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.
William James
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I wished by treating Psychology like a natural science, to help her become one.
William James
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Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.
William James
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'Facts' are the bounds of human knowledge, set for it, not by it.
William James
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One of the greatest discoveries of our time is that a man can alter the state of their life by altering the state of their mind.
William James
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Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
William James
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Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.
William James
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Men's activities are occupied into ways -- in grappling with external circumstances and in striving to set things at one in their own topsy-turvy mind.
William James
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My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time.
William James
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The emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
William James
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At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe.
William James
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Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.
William James
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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.
William James
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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.
William James
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Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.
William James
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True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas that therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as.
William James
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There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.
William James
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No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed.
William James
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A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
William James