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 JAMESHabit 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.
More William James Quotes
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Experience, as we know, has a way of boiling over, and making us correct our present formulas.
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To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
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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.
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You can alter your life by altering the state of your mind.
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Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.
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A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates.
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The general law is that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed by a bodily change.
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No living person is sunk so low as not to be imitated by somebody.
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Genius is the capacity for seeing relationships where lesser men see none.
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Footnotes — little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
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The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.
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If merely ‘feeling good’ could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.
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It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.
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A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him.
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The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.
WILLIAM JAMES