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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.

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
Effort
Make
World
Undervalued
Strictly
Contribution
Originals
Original

More quotes by William James

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There is but one unconditional commandment ... to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
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All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.
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There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.
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Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.
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The war-function has grasped us so far but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.
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The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.
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You make a great, very great mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use.
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Individuality is founded in feeling
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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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The difference between objective and subjective extension is one of relation to a context solely.
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.
William James
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There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
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The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.
William James
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Science as such assuredly has no authority, for she can only say what is, not what is not.
William James
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Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically has walked.
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Our belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking is the one thing that assures the successful outcome of any venture.
William James
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You can alter your life by altering the state of your mind.
William James
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Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
William James
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Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.
William James