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With no attempt there can be no failure with no failure no humiliation.

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
Attempt
Failure
Humiliation

More quotes by William James

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From a pragmatic point of view, the difference between living against a background of foreigness (an indifferent Universe) and one of intimacy (a benevolent Universe) means the difference between a general habit of wariness and one of trust.
William James
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The god whom science recognizes must be a God of universal laws exclusively, a God who does a wholesale, not a retail business. He cannot accommodate his processes to the convenience of individuals.
William James
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There is an organic affinity between joyousness and tenderness.
William James
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As a rule reading fiction is as hard to me as trying to hit a target by hurling feathers at it. I need resistance to celebrate!
William James
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The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
William James
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Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.
William James
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A great idea goes through three stages on its way to acceptance: 1) it is dismissed as nonsense, 2) it is acknowledged as true, but insignificant, 3) finally, it is seen to be important, but not really anything new.
William James
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All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
William James
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Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.
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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The exercise of prayer, in those who habitually exert it, must be regarded by us doctors as the most adequate and normal of all the pacifiers of the mind and calmers of the nerves.
William James
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The general law is that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change.
William James
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Good-humor is a philosophic state of mind it seems to say to Nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us. I maintain that one should always talk of philosophy with a smile.
William James
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The greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.
William James
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Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.
William James
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Individuality is founded in feeling and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.
William James
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To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking.
William James
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It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
William James
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... the intellect, everywhere invasive, shows everywhere its shallowing effect.
William James
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Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.
William James