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To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides

William James

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
I myself believe that the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.
WILLIAM JAMES

Belief Believe Experience Lying
How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.
WILLIAM JAMES

Happiness Laughter Men
Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
WILLIAM JAMES

Democracy Genius People
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
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
A new opinion counts as true just in proportion as it gratifies the individual’s desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock
WILLIAM JAMES

Belief Desire Truth
To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
WILLIAM JAMES

Mind Philosophy Quiet
Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
WILLIAM JAMES

Differences Everything Insightful Making
True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot
WILLIAM JAMES

Ideas Truth Verify
We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
WILLIAM JAMES

Function Intellect Thinking
The emotions aren’t always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
WILLIAM JAMES

Action Emotional Feelings
We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
WILLIAM JAMES

Data Powerful Science
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
WILLIAM JAMES

Best Effort Forget Hard Work
Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
WILLIAM JAMES

Affection Alpha Omega
To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
WILLIAM JAMES

Abnormal Philosophical Understanding

To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides

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To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides

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