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The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

William James

The lunatic’s visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact.
WILLIAM JAMES

Facts Insanity Vision
With no attempt there can be no failure; with no failure no humiliation.
WILLIAM JAMES

Attempt Failure Humiliation No
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
Our intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in a chrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the universe that engendered it.
WILLIAM JAMES

Alive Cost Wall
[T]here is very little difference between one person and another, but what little difference ther eis, is very important.
WILLIAM JAMES

Differences Important Personality
Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
WILLIAM JAMES

Inspirational Positive Success
There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.
WILLIAM JAMES

Finals Lasts Men
The instant field of the present is at all times what I call the ‘pure’ experience. It is only virtually or potentially either object or subject as yet.
WILLIAM JAMES

All Fields Instant Time
Truth is something that happens to an idea.
WILLIAM JAMES

Happen Ideas Truth
The deepest longing in the human breast is the desire for appreciation.
WILLIAM JAMES

Appreciation Creativity Desire
There is but one unconditional commandment … to bring about the very largest total universe of good which we can see.
WILLIAM JAMES

Helping Others Unconditional Volunteering
If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.
WILLIAM JAMES

Esteem Leadership Quality Self
Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions.
WILLIAM JAMES

Congratulations Self Esteem Success
A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be a far stronger creature than was supposed.
WILLIAM JAMES

Men Responsibility Stronger
No bell in us tolls to let us know for certain when truth is in our grasp.
WILLIAM JAMES

Bells Tolls Truth
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

Flux Names Reflection
Mankind’s common instinct for reality has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism.
WILLIAM JAMES

Heroism Reality Theatre
All religions begin with the cry Help.
WILLIAM JAMES

Cry Helping Religion
When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.
WILLIAM JAMES

Decision Order Responsibility
You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at work within the stream of your experience.
WILLIAM JAMES

Cash Experience Stream
We are stereotyped creatures, imitators and copiers of our past selves.
WILLIAM JAMES

Habit Past Self
To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides
WILLIAM JAMES

Objects Truth World
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
The difference between objective and subjective extension is one of relation to a context solely.
WILLIAM JAMES

Differences Extensions Relation
Everything which is demanded is by that fact a good.
WILLIAM JAMES

Demanded Everything Facts
At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe.
WILLIAM JAMES

Acceptance Wisdom Wise
The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.
WILLIAM JAMES

Allies Education Enemy

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

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The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

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Popular Authors

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