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To give the theory plenty of 'rope' and see if it hangs itself eventually is better tactics than to choke it off at the outset b abstract accusations of self-contradiction

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
Truth
Choke
Give
Tactics
Better
Rope
Self
Contradiction
Giving
Abstract
Accusations
Eventually
Outset
Plenty
Accusation
Theory
Hangs

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Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and co-ordinate with it
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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can...in the acquisition of a new habit, we must take car to launch ourselves with as strong and decided initiative as possible. Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life.
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A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
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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.
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Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or being.
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One hears of the mechanical equivalent of heat. What we now need to discover in the social realm is the moral equivalent of war: something heroic that will speak to men as universally as war does, and yet will be as compatible with their spiritual selves as war has proved itself to be incompatible.
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Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
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Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
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Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
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Don't preach too much to your pupils or abound in good talk in the abstract. Lie in wait rather for the practical opportunities, be prompt to seize those as they pass, and thus at one operation get your pupils both to think, to feel, and to do.
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You may not get everything you dream about, but you will never get anything you don't dream about.
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The thinker philosophizes as the lover loves. Even were the consequences not only useless but harmful, he must obey his impulse.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Our colleges ought to have lit up in us a lasting relish for a better kind of man, a loss of appetite for mediocrities.
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To change one's life: a. Start immediately b. B. Do it flamboyantly c. No exceptions Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted.
William James
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Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
William James
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Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!
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The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.
William James