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No one sees further into a generalization than his own knowledge of detail extends.

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
Generalization
Extends
Detail
Sees
Details
Knowledge

More quotes by William James

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Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
William James
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Your hopes, dreams and aspirations are legitimate. They are trying to take you airborne, above the clouds, above the storms, if you only let them.
William James
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The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
William James
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So long as antimilitarists propose no substitute for war's disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation.
William James
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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible ... faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance.
William James
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Men habitually use only a small part of the power which they actually possess.
William James
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'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.
William James
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Our ideas must agree with realities, be such realities concrete or abstract, be they facts or be they principles, under penalty of endless inconsistency and frustration.
William James
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Language is the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought.
William James
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There is a voice inside which speaks and says, This is the real me!
William James
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The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.
William James
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We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
William James
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There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.
William James
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The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the 'pure' experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.
William James
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We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone.
William James
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I believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomena are IMPOSSIBLE.
William James
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Man is essentially the imitative animal. His whole educabilityand in fact the whole history of civilization depend on this trait, which his strong tendencies to rivalry, jealousy, and acquisitiveness reinforce.
William James
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So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.
William James
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The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
William James
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We don't laugh because we're happy - we're happy because we laugh.
William James