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We and God have business with each other, and in opening ourselves to God's influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.

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
Fulfilled
Deepest
Opening
Destiny
Influence
Business

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.
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!
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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The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The most such sciences can do is to help us to catch ourselves up and check ourselves, if we start to reason or to behave wrongly and to criticise ourselves more articulately after we have made mistakes.
William James
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You perceive now, my friends, what your general or abstract duty is as teachers. Although you have to generate in your pupils a large stock of ideas, any one of which may be inhibitory, yet you must also see to it that no habitual hesitancy or paralysis of the will ensues, and that the pupil still retains his power of vigorous action.
William James
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The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other.
William James
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The good or bad is not in the circumstance, but only in the mind...that encounters it.
William James
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The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have been flown for religious ideals.
William James
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There's nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.
William James
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No decision is, in itself, a decision.
William James
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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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To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them ratified.
William James
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To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one's being added to that being.
William James
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I don't see how an epigram, being a bolt from the blue, with no introduction or cue, ever gets itself writ.
William James
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The amount of psychology which is necessary to all teachers need not be very great.
William James
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So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do.
William James
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One hearty laugh together will bring enemies into a closer communion of heart than hours spent on both sides in inward wrestling with the mental demon of uncharitable feeling.
William James
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Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought.
William James
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[T]here is very little difference between one person and another, but what little difference ther eis, is very important.
William James
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Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none.
William James