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Truth happens to an idea

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
Idea
Happens
Truth
Ideas

More quotes by William James

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The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.
William James
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Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions.
William James
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Every way of classifying a thing is but a way of handling it for some particular purpose.
William James
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Out of time we cut 'days' and 'nights', 'summers' and 'winters.' We say what, each part of the sensible continuum is, and all these abstract whats are concepts. The intelletual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of a conceptual order for the persceptual order in which his experience originally comes.
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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If WE claim only reasonable probability, it will be as much as men who love the truth can ever at any given moment hope to have within their grasp.
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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The question of free will is insoluble on strictly psychological grounds.
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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Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.
William James
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Choose a self and stand by it.
William James
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There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness, and their companionship in the saintly life need in no way occasion surprise.
William James
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My experience is what I agree to attend to.
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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My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
William James
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Give your dreams all you've got, and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.
William James
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Of all the beautiful truths pertaining to the soul None is more gladdening or fruitful than to know You can regenerate and make yourself what you will.
William James
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We with our lives are like islands in the sea... The islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
William James
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The sovereign cure for worry is prayer.
William James