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Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.

William James

As long as there are postmen, life will have zest.
WILLIAM JAMES

Expectations Long Zest
Man can change his life simply by changing his attitude.
WILLIAM JAMES

Attitude Changing Men
Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.
WILLIAM JAMES

Chapters Egotism Religion
Mankind’s common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.
WILLIAM JAMES

Heroism Reality Theatre
We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
WILLIAM JAMES

Data Powerful Science
It seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst the Europeans talk.
WILLIAM JAMES

Natural Political Politics
True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to ‘principles,’ and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.
WILLIAM JAMES

Habit Principles Thinking
Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.
WILLIAM JAMES

Pay Quality Supreme
To consider hypotheses is surely always better than to dogmatize ins blaue hinein
WILLIAM JAMES

Dogmatize Hypothesis Truth
Effort is the one strictly undervalued and original contribution we make to this world.
WILLIAM JAMES

Contribution Effort World
Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive.
WILLIAM JAMES

Alive Attitude Authenticity
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.
WILLIAM JAMES

Law Science Together
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
Each of us is in fact what he is almost exclusively by virtue of his imitative-ness.
WILLIAM JAMES

Facts Models Role Virtue
So to feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end…and a courage-fit will very likely replace the fit of fear.
WILLIAM JAMES

Anticipation Brave Use
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
WILLIAM JAMES

Ethics Philosophical Quality

Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.

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Modern man . . . has not ceased to be credulous . . . the need to believe haunts him.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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