Quotes by William James
Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor.
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William James Quotes
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
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William James Quotes
The moral flabbiness born of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That - with the squalid interpretation put on the word success - is our national disease.
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William James Quotes
We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition.
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William James Quotes
Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
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William James Quotes
Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their "agreement," as falsity means their disagreement, with "reality."
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William James Quotes
Science, like life, feeds on its own decay. New facts burst old rules; then newly divined conceptions bind old and new together into a reconciling law.
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William James Quotes
The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers.
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William James Quotes
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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William James Quotes
The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.
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William James Quotes
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
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William James Quotes
A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.
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William James Quotes
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
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William James Quotes
Language is the most imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought.
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William James Quotes
Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second.
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William James Quotes
When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
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William James Quotes
Thinking is what a great many people think they are doing when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
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William James Quotes
I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self. Why was that so very difficult?
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William James Quotes