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 JAMESTo know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides
More William James Quotes
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I myself believe that the evidence for God lies primarily in inner personal experiences.
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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.
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Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
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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.
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The mind, in short, works on the data it receives very much as the sculptor works on his block of stone.
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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
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To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.
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Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.
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True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot
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We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the intellect from participating in any of our functions.
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The emotions aren’t always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
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We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.
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We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
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Touch is the alpha and omega of affection.
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To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.
WILLIAM JAMES