William James Quotes - Page 23

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We have nothing to do but to receive, resting absolutely upon the merit, power, and love of our Redeemer.

William James

And Love, Merit, Power And Love

"Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers". Book by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, 1895.

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The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and its fortunes. We accordingly see that the moment a thing becomes connected with the fortunes of the self, it forthwith becomes an interesting thing.

William James

Educational, Philosophy, Men

William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.78, Nuvision Pubns

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Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?

William James

Dream, Science, Play

"The Will to Believe" (1896)

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Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.

William James

Character, Mean, Organization

William James (1987). “Essays, Comments, and Reviews”, p.90, Harvard University Press

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If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have been among the most important. . . . It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, especially when a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun.

William James

Fun, Fighting, Survival

William James (1918). “The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 2”, p.412, Courier Corporation

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I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.

William James

Doubt, Lovers, Disorder

"The William James Reader".

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Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.

William James

Regret, Men, Agents

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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

Believe, Destiny, Race

William James, Elizabeth Hardwick (1980). “The Selected Letters of William James”, David R Godine Pub

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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.

William James

Spiritual, Military, Believe

William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1982). “Essays in Religion and Morality”, p.173, Harvard University Press

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The first effect of the mind growing cultivated is that processes once multiple get to be performed in a single act. Lazarus has called this the progressive "condensation" of thought. ... Steps really sink from sight. An advanced thinker sees the relations of his topics is such masses and so instantaneously that when he comes to explain to younger minds it is often hard ... Bowditch, who translated and annotated Laplace's Méchanique Céleste, said that whenever his author prefaced a proposition by the words "it is evident," he knew that many hours of hard study lay before him.

William James

Science, Sight, Mind

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True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known as.

William James

Ideas, Differences, Truth Is

William James (2013). “The Meaning of Truth”, p.6, Courier Corporation

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To be fertile in hypotheses is the first perquisite of creativity and to be willing to throw them away the moment experience contradicts them is the next.

William James

Creativity, Next, Firsts

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The same is true of Love, and the instinctive desire to please those whom we love. The teacher who succeeds in getting herself loved by the pupils will obtain results which one of a more forbidding temperament finds it impossible to secure.

William James

Teacher, Teaching, Self Love

William James (2013). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.24, Courier Corporation

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The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us, a datum in the strict sense of the word, something we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.

William James

Lying, Data, Wish

William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1978). “Essays in Philosophy”, p.59, Harvard University Press

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O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim.

William James

Philosophy, Real, Book

William James (1961). “Selected Letters”

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Millions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind --without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.

William James

Order, Mind, Experience

William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.402, Courier Corporation

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There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere.

William James

Differences, Making A Difference, Doe

William James (2000). “Pragmatism and Other Writings”, p.66, Penguin

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The first thing that intellect does with an object is to class it with something else.

William James

Class, Doe, Firsts

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The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as its existence.

William James

Stopping, Unrest, World

William James (1987). “Writings, 1902-1910”, p.1002, Library of America

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The war-function has grasped us so far; but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden.

William James

War, May, Individual

William James (2016). “William James: Essays and Lectures”, p.311, Routledge

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Most men's friendships are too inarticulate.

William James

Men, Inarticulate

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Theory must mediate between all previous truths and certain new experiences

William James

Truth, New Experiences, Theory

William James (2013). “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (New Thought Edition - Secret Library)”, p.101, Lulu Press, Inc

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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.

William James

Elements, Construction, Radical

William James (1976). “Essays in Radical Empiricism”, p.22, Harvard University Press

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Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us; our hour of triumph is what brings the void. Not the Jews of the captivity, but those of the days of Solomon 's glory are those from whom the pessimistic utterances in our Bible come.

William James

Struggle, Inspire, Triumph

William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.47, Courier Corporation

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The question of free will is insoluble on strictly psychological grounds.

William James

Free Will, Psychological

William James (1984). “Psychology, Briefer Course”, p.391, Harvard University Press

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

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