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Mankind's common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.

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
Always
Heroism
World
Essentially
Held
Theatre
Instinct
Mankind
Common
Reality

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Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.
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Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
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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.
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Man lives for science as well as bread.
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Great indeed is Fear but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual energy.
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We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
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Since you make evil or good by your own thoughts, it is your ruling of your thoughts which proves to be your principal concern.
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The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.
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To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.
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There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood bu those who hear it.
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The instinct of ownership is fundamental in man's nature.
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Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being but how or why, no mortal may ever know.
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Intelligence is a fixed goal with variable means of achieving it.
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We must not just patch and tinker with life. We must keep renewing it. Embrace novelty and uniqueness.
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The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer--and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature's particulars.
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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!
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To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
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