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True is the name for whatever idea starts the verification process, useful is the name for its completed function in experience

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
True
Useful
Truth
Function
Ideas
Name
Names
Whatever
Idea
Verification
Process
Completed
Experience
Starts

More quotes by William James

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There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.
William James
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Why may we not be in the universe, as our dogs and cats are in our drawingrooms and libraries?
William James
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We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone until those smiling possibilities are dead... By neglecting the necessary concrete labor, by sparing ourselves the little daily tax, we are positively digging the graves of our higher possibilities.
William James
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Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.
William James
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The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
William James
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Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.
William James
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A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.
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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It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
William James
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Man alone of all the creatures of earth can change his own pattern. Man alone is the architect of his own destiny.
William James
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Real servants don't try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.
William James
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A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.
William James
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The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.
William James
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There is a law in psychology that if you form a picture in your mind of what you would like to be, and you keep and hold that picture there long enough, you will soon become exactly as you have been thinking.
William James
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If any one phrase could gather its (religion's) universal message, that phrase would be, - All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever the appearances may suggest.
William James
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What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise.
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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A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
William James
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If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.
William James
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It would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the scenery there was from that in his own.
William James