Quote

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.

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
Rather
Opportunities
Pupils
Opportunity
Thus
Seize
Feel
Pass
Preach
Feels
Wait
Operation
Much
Habit
Practicals
Good
Waiting
Operations
Abound
Think
Talk
Practical
Prompt
Thinking
Lying
Abstract
Prompts

More quotes by William James

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Let anyone try, I will not say to arrest, but to notice or to attend to, the present moment of time. One of the most baffling experiences occurs. Where is it, this present? It has melted in our grasp, fled ere we could touch it, gone in the instant of becoming.
William James
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To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
William James
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Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already exists.
William James
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Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.
William James
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Owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be the last one
William James
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The man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always achieving and advancing whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten, simply hold their own.
William James
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Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
William James
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Geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of sustained attention . . . But it is their genius making them attentive, not their attention making geniuses of them.
William James
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How can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, the mystery, the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for him in the days when he was young and well?
William James
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Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.
William James
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The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer--and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature's particulars.
William James
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Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James
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The war-function has grasped us so far but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.
William James
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There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood bu those who hear it.
William James
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Equality is attainable as long as you are part of the majority.
William James
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If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.
William James
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The prescription is that the subject must be made to show new aspects of itself to prompt new questions in a word, to change. From an unchanging subject the attention inevitably wanders away.
William James
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Do every day or two something for no other reason than its difficulty.
William James
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If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.
William James
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Lay plans as if we were to be immortal.
William James