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

More quotes by William James

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The study a posteriori of the distribution of consciousness shows it to be exactly such as we might expect in an organ added for the sake of steering a nervous system grown too complex to regulate itself.
William James
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This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
William James
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... no bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.
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Deepest principle of human nature is to be appreciated.
William James
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
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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Our theories are wedged and controlled as nothing else is. Yet sometimes alternative theoretic formulas are equally compatible with all the truths we know, and then we choose between them for subjective reasons. We choose the kind of theory to which we are already partial: we follow 'elegenace' or 'economy'
William James
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Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.
William James
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The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as its existence.
William James
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The love of life, at any and every level of development, is the religious impulse.
William James
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It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
William James
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Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.
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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The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!
William James
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Act in earnest and you will become earnest in all you do.
William James
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What holds attention determines action.
William James
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If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
William James
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What a teacher needs to know about psychology might almost be written on the palm of one's hand.
William James
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The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons.
William James
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Most men's friendships are too inarticulate.
William James