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'What would be better for us to believe!' This sounds very like a definition of truth

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
Sound
Truth
Better
Believe
Would
Like
Definition
Definitions
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More quotes by William James

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Emotional occasions, especially violent ones, are extremely potent in precipitating mental rearrangements. The sudden and explosive ways in which love, jealousy, guilt, fear, remorse, or anger can seize upon one are known to everybody. . . . And emotions that come in this explosive way seldom leave things as they found them.
William James
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From all these facts there emerges a very simple abstract program for the teacher to follow in keeping the attention of the child: Begin with the line of his native interests, and offer him objects that have some immediate connection with these.
William James
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The general law is that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change.
William James
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O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.
William James
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All the daily routine of life, our dressing and undressing, the coming and going from our work or carrying through of its various operations, is utterly without mental reference to pleasure and pain, except under rarely realized conditions.
William James
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Science as such assuredly has no authority, for she can only say what is, not what is not.
William James
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It is only the fundamental conceptions of psychology which are of real value to a teacher.
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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Once you accept an idea, it's an idea whose time has come.
William James
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Events are influenced by our very great desires.
William James
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It is not probable that the reader will be satisfied with any of these solutions, and contemporary philosophers, even rationalistically minded ones, have on the whole agreed that no one has intelligibly banished the mystery of fact.
William James
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Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
William James
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In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, is a war now thought permissible.
William James
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Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.
William James
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Faith branches off the highroad before reason begins
William James
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We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
William James
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To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being.
William James
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Religions have approved themselves they have ministered to sundry vital needs which they found reigning. When they violated other needs too strongly, or when other faiths came which served the same needs better, the first religions were supplanted.
William James
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New habits can be launched.
William James
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If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
William James