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In the matter of belief, we are all extreme conservatives.

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
Extreme
Extremes
Belief
Matter
Conservatives

More quotes by William James

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Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.
William James
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There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.
William James
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The difference between an interesting and a tedious teacher consists in little more than the inventiveness by which the one is able to mediate these associations and connections, and in the dullness in discovering such transitions which the other shows.
William James
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Formula to live your dream: 1. Be bold. 2. Begin now, 3. No exceptions.
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A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.
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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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Ingenuity in meeting and pursuing the pupil, that tact for the concrete situation, though they are the alpha and omega of the teacher's art, are things to which psychology cannot help us in the least.
William James
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The perfection of rottenness.
William James
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History is a bath of blood.
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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Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. Bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.
William James
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If you can change your mind, you can change your life.
William James
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I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is true so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives
William James
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Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.
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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The teachers of this country, one may say, have its future in their hands.
William James
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...as I apprehend the Buddhist doctrine of karma, I agree in principle with that.
William James
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So far war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way.
William James
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Life feels like a real fight - as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem.
William James
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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