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The first lecture in psychology that I ever heard was 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
Philosopher
Physician
Psychologist
University Teacher
W. James
Lectures
Psychology
Gave
Heard
Ever
Firsts
First
Lecture

More quotes by William James

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The suspicion is in the air nowadays that the superiority of one of our formulas to another may not consist so much in its literal 'objectivity,' as in subjective qualities like its usefulness, its 'elegance,' or its congruity with our residual beliefs
William James
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I am, myself, a very poor visualizer and find that I can seldom call to mind even a single letter of the alphabet in purely retinal terms. I must trace the letter by running my mental eye over its contour in order that the image of it shall leave any distinctness at all.
William James
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Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.
William James
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The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.
William James
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There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man's lack of faith in his true Self.
William James
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The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.
William James
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If things are ever to move upward, some one must take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try non-resistance as the saint is always willing, can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed.
William James
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Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.
William James
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Woe to him whose beliefs play fast and loose with the order which realities follow in his experience they will lead him nowhere or else make false connections
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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The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
William James
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The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.
William James
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Out of time we cut 'days' and 'nights', 'summers' and 'winters.' We say what, each part of the sensible continuum is, and all these abstract whats are concepts. The intelletual life of man consists almost wholly in his substitution of a conceptual order for the persceptual order in which his experience originally comes.
William James
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If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
William James
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The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.
William James
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Faith is one of the forces by which men live, and the total absence of it means collapse
William James
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Events are influenced by our very great desires.
William James
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It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
William James
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I will act as if I do make a difference.
William James
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Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.
William James