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The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.

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
Block
Data
Stones
Short
Works
Sculptor
Much
Sculptors
Mind
Receives
Stone

More quotes by William James

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Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.
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The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
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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.
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How can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, the mystery, the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for him in the days when he was young and well?
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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.
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A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James
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The stream of thought flows on but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion. Of some, no memory survives the instant of their passage. Of others, it is confined to a few moments, hours or days. Others, again, leave vestiges which are indestructible, and by means of which they may be recalled as long as life endures.
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An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: There is very little difference between one man and another but what little there is, is very important. This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.
William James
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All the qualities of a man acquire dignity when he knows that the service of the collectivity that owns him needs them. If proud of the collectivity, his own pride rises in proportion. No collectivity is like an army for nourishing such pride.
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... if we take the universe of 'fitting,' countless coats 'fit' backs, and countless boots 'fit' feet, on which they are not practically fitted countless stones 'fit' gaps in walls into which no one seeks to fit them actually. In the same way countless opinions 'fit' realities, and countless truths are valid, tho no thinker ever thinks them.
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No decision is, in itself, a decision.
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Man lives in only one small room of the enormous house of his consciousness.
William James
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In its broadest term, religion says that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in rightful relations to it.
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How many of us persist in a precipitate course which, but for a moment of heedlessness we might never have entered upon, simply because we hate to change our minds.
William James
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The power to move the world is in the subconcious mind
William James
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For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.
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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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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Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.
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Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.
William James