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

More quotes by William James

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The work that leads to a doctor's degree is a constant temptation to sacrifice one's growth as a man to one's growth as a specialist.
William James
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Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.
William James
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If you want to change your life, do it flamboyantly and start immediately.
William James
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The minute a man ceases to grow, no matter what his years, that minute he begins to be old.
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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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
William James
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Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.
William James
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We need only in cold blood to act as if the thing in question were real and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.
William James
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First... a new theory is attacked as absurd then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.
William James
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The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.
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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We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. ...Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.
William James
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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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Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon 's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come.
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 would be better for us to believe!' This sounds very like a definition of truth
William James
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There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or snicker if sad, it must not scream or curse.
William James
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Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.
William James
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To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
William James
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The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
William James