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True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot
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
Cannot
Truth
Ideas
Validate
Assimilate
Verify
False
True
More quotes by William James
To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
William James
Knowledge about life is one thing effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
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That which is most personal, is most interesting.
William James
To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
William James
We can act as if there were a God feel as if we were free consider Nature as if she were full of special designs lay plans as if we were to be immortal and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.
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The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.
William James
You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about.
William James
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
William James
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
If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.
William James
Faith is synonymous with working hypothesis.
William James
Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce.
William James
In all this process of acquiring conceptions, a certain instinctive order is followed. There is a native tendency to assimilate certain kinds of conception at one age, and other kinds of conception at a later age.
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Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.
William James
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
William James
The greatest empiricists among us are only empiricists on reflection: when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes.
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Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.
William James
The most immutable barrier in nature is between one man's thoughts and another's.
William James
To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
William James
Our minds thus grow in spots and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in it stains the ancient mass but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.
William James