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Habit is the great flywheel of society.

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
Habit
Society
Great

More quotes by William James

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There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.
William James
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The teacher's prime concern should be to ingrain into the pupil that assortment of habits that shall be most useful to him throughout life. Education is for behavior, and habits are the stuff of which behavior consists.
William James
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Despair lames most people, but it wakes others fully up.
William James
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The sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, to look round cheerfully, and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there. If such conduct does not make you soon feel cheerful, nothing else on that occasion can.
William James
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Results should not be too voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of. They are sure to float up of their own accord from a long enough daily work at a given matter.
William James
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What a magnificent land and race is this Britain! Everything about them is of better quality than the corresponding thing in the U.S.... Yet I believe (or suspect) that ours is eventually the bigger destiny, if we can only succeed in living up to it.
William James
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The self-same atoms which, chaotically dispersed, made the nebula, now, jammed and temporarily caught in peculiar positions, form our brains and the 'evolution' of brains, if understood, would be simply the account of how the atoms came to be so caught and jammed.
William James
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As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
William James
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Asceticism may be a mere expression of organic hardihood, disgusted with too much ease.
William James
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Man lives by habits indeed, but what he lives for is thrill and excitements. ... From time immemorial war has been ... the supremely thrilling excitement.
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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[Pragmatism's] only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.
William James
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In the deepest heart of all of us there is a corner in which the ultimate mystery of things works sadly.
William James
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This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.
William James
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Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none.
William James
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Everything which is demanded is by that fact a good.
William James
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If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.
William James
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The perfection of rottenness.
William James
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Time itself comes in drops.
William James
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Strength is a facade for the proud, weakness is a mask for the lazy.
William James