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We are proud of a human nature that could be so passionately extreme, but we shrink from advising others to follow the example.

William James

We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest… But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.
WILLIAM JAMES

Islands Roots Sea Underground
Footnotes — little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
WILLIAM JAMES

Dog Littles Writing
All of our life is but a mass of small habits – practical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual – that bear us irresistibly toward our destiny.
WILLIAM JAMES

Destiny Military Spiritual
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
WILLIAM JAMES

Ethics Philosophical Quality
Both thought and feeling are determinants of conduct, and the same conduct may be determined either by feeling or by thought.
WILLIAM JAMES

Determine Feelings May
The deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appreciation.
WILLIAM JAMES

Appreciation Creativity Desire
There can be no existence of evil as a force to the healthy-minded individual.
WILLIAM JAMES

Evil Healthy Individual
The strenuous life tastes better
WILLIAM JAMES

Better Strenuous Taste
… the intellect, everywhere invasive, shows everywhere its shallowing effect.
WILLIAM JAMES

Effects Intellect Shows
The impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race.
WILLIAM JAMES

Free Race Vagueness Will
Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
WILLIAM JAMES

Inspirational Positive Success
Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
WILLIAM JAMES

Democracy Genius People
The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.
WILLIAM JAMES

Block Data Mind
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance.
WILLIAM JAMES

Agents Ordinance Uprising Wheels
Every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
WILLIAM JAMES

Agony Individual Lonely
The total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other.
WILLIAM JAMES

Consciousness May Splits

We are proud of a human nature that could be so passionately extreme, but we shrink from advising others to follow the example.

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We are proud of a human nature that could be so passionately extreme, but we shrink from advising others to follow the example.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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