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I originally studied medicine in order to be a physiologist, but I drifted into psychology and philosophy from a sort of fatality. I never had any philosophic instruction, the first lecture on psychology I ever heard being the first I ever gave.

William James

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William James
Age: 68 †
Born: 1842
Born: January 11
Died: 1910
Died: August 26
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More quotes by William James

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In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, is a war now thought permissible.
William James
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All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
William James
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My experience is what I agree to attend to.
William James
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In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannot start.
William James
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Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don't want to do
William James
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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.
William James
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[Religion is] the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things.
William James
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If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.
William James
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Act the part and you will become the part.
William James
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For the moment, what we attend to is reality.
William James
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The philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos.
William James
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Religious awe is the same organic thrill which we feel in a forest at twilight, or in a mountain gorge.
William James
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In business for yourself, not by yourself.
William James
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The difference between the first and second-best things in art absolutely seems to escape verbal definition -- it is a matter of a hair, a shade, an inward quiver of some kind -- yet what miles away in the point of preciousness!
William James
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The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons.
William James
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I take it that no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide.
William James
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The soul is stronger than its surroundings.
William James
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It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
William James
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Religions have approved themselves they have ministered to sundry vital needs which they found reigning. When they violated other needs too strongly, or when other faiths came which served the same needs better, the first religions were supplanted.
William James
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You can't out-perform your self-image.
William James