Quote

To be fertile in hypotheses is the first perquisite of creativity and to be willing to throw them away the moment experience contradicts them is the next.

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
Willing
Moment
Experience
Contradicts
Away
Hypotheses
Next
Fertile
Moments
Hypothesis
Firsts
Throw
First
Creativity

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We are mere bundles of habits.
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To leap across an abyss, one is better served by faith than doubt.
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All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
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The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
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The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.
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We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.
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Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.
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Science can tell us what exists but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exist, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart.
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[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.
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The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.
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The strenuous life tastes better
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So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end...and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.
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The pragmatist turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns toward concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power.
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A winner's attitude: it may be difficult, but it's possible. A loser's attitude: It may be possible, but it's too difficult.
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...These healers...my intellect has been unable to assimilate their theories....But their facts are patent and startling and anything that interferes with the multiplication of such facts, and with our freest opportunity of observing and studying them, will, I believe, be a public calamity.
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All natural goods perish. Riches take wings fame is a breath love is a cheat youth and health and pleasure vanish.
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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.
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The love of life, at any and every level of development, is the religious impulse.
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Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract
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Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them, or they may only have dreamed or imagined they did so.
William James