William James Quotes - Page 16

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All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish.

William James

Health, Love Is, Wings

William James (1911). “The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature; Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902”

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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

Art, Mistake, Teaching

William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.15, Harvard University Press

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...By far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.

William James

Science, Abuse, Usual

William James (2015). “Pragmatism: Human Understanding”, p.22, 谷月社

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I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers.

William James

Philosophy, Philosophical, Philosopher

"Memories and Studies".

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We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind.

William James

Animal, Sight, Society

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.293, Courier Corporation

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The last peculiarity of consciousness to which attention is to be drawn in this first rough description of its stream is that it is always interested more in one part of its object than in another, and welcomes and rejects, or chooses, all the while it thinks.

William James

Thinking, Attention, Lasts

William James, (2013). “The Principles Of Psychology -”, p.233, Read Books Ltd

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We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self..."

William James

Self, Inferiority, Habit

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Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.

William James

Truth, Law, Names

William James (2012). “Pragmatism”, p.93, Courier Corporation

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We need only in cold blood to act as if the thing in question were real and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.

William James

Real, Blood, Growing

William James (1950). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.321, Courier Corporation

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Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.

William James

Religion, Chapters, Egotism

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.440, Library of America

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Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes. Not through mere perversity do men run after it.

William James

Running, Men, Sobriety

1902 The Varieties of Religious Experience,'Mysticism'.

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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

Mean, Views, Differences

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Geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of sustained attention . . . But it is their genius making them attentive, not their attention making geniuses of them.

William James

Men, Attention, Genius

William James (2007). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.423, Cosimo, Inc.

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We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of Prayer. Many reasons are given why we should not pray. Others give reasons why we should pray. Very little is said of the reason we do pray. The reason is simple: We pray because we cannot help praying.

William James

Prayer, Science, Simple

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Fatalism, whose solving word in all crises of behavior is All striving is vain, will never reign supreme, for the impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race. Moral creeds which speak to that impulse will be widely successful in spite of inconsistency, vagueness, and shadowy determination of expectancy. Man needs a rule for his will, and will invent one if one be not given him.

William James

Life, Determination, Successful

William James (2015). “Essays in Popular Philosophy: Top Essays”, p.58, 谷月社

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The perfection of rottenness.

William James

Sarcastic, Perfection

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Language is the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought.

William James

Mean, Imperfect, Language

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Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they. But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings with the card. Romeo soon finds a circuitous way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of touching Juliet's lips directly. With the filings the path is fixed; whether it reaches the end depends on accidents. With the lover it is the end which is fixed, the path may be modified indefinitely.

William James

Life, Wall, Moving

William James (1950). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.7, Courier Corporation

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'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.

William James

Reflection, Names, Flux

William James (2015). “Essays in Radical Empiricism”, p.63, Sheba Blake Publishing

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If the topic be highly abstract, show its nature by concrete examples. If it be unfamiliar, trace some point of analogy in it with the known. If it be inhuman, make it figure as part of a story. If it be difficult, couple its acquisition with some prospect of personal gain. Above all things, make sure that it shall run through certain inner changes, since no unvarying object can possibly hold the mental field for long.

William James

Running, Couple, Educational

"Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals".

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Creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same experience again. A polyp would be a conceptual thinker if a feeling of 'Hello! thingumbob again!' ever flitted through its mind.

William James

Feelings, Intellectual, Mind

William James (1955). “The principles of psychology”

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The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.

William James

Philosophy, Philosophical, Certain

William James (2015). “Pragmatism: Human Understanding”, p.2, 谷月社

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Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom.

William James

Ocean, Islands, Sea

William James (1986). “Essays in Psychical Research”, p.374, Harvard University Press

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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

Success, Confidence, Believe

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Few people have definitely articulated philosophies of their own. But almost everyone has his own peculiar sense of a certain total character in the universe, and of the inadequacy of fully to match it [to] the peculiar systems that he knows.

William James

Philosophy, Character, People

William James (2013). “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (New Thought Edition - Secret Library)”, p.24, Lulu Press, Inc

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Born: January 11, 1842
Died: August 26, 1910
Occupation: Philosopher
Cite this Page: Citation

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