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If it works, it's true.

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
Works
True

More quotes by William James

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Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
William James
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The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
William James
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Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind --without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.
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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Real servants don't try to use God for their purposes. They let God use them for His purposes.
William James
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On pragmatistic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.
William James
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It would probably astound each of them beyond measure to be let into his neighbor's mind and to find how different the scenery there was from that in his own.
William James
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The greatest weapon we have to combat stress is the ability to choose our thoughts.
William James
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The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.
William James
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The drunken consciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness, and our total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that larger whole.
William James
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Man lives for science as well as bread.
William James
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Our beliefs are really rules for action.
William James
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Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling.
William James
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We want all our friends to tell us our bad qualities it is only the particular ass that does so whom we can't tolerate.
William James
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We with our lives are like islands in the sea... The islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.
William James
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The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone. In a sense the statue stoodthere from eternity. But there were a thousand different ones beside it, and the sculptor alone is to thank for having extricated this one from the rest.
William James
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We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.
William James
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No living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody.
William James
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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous.
William James
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Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive.
William James