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Quote by William James

“The states of consciousness are all that psychology needs to do her work with. Metaphysics or theology may prove the Soul to exist; but for psychology the hypothesis of such a substantial principle of unity is superfluous.”

Quote by William James

Book:Psychology, Briefer Course

Work

Psychology, Briefer Course

This book provides a streamlined exploration of key psychological concepts and research findings, offering readers an accessible introduction to the field. more

Author

William James, born on January 11, 1842, and died on August 26, 1910, was an influential American philosopher, psychologist, and writer. He is considered one of the founders of functionalism in psychology and has had a profound impact on the fields of psychology, philosophy, and religion. more

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“Religions have approved themselves; they have ministered to sundry vital needs which they found reigning. When they violated other needs too strongly, or when other faiths came which served the same needs better, the first religions were supplanted.”

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Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

“The squalid cash interpretation put on the word success is our national disease.”

Disease Interpretation Cash

Author:William James

“It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.”

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Book:The Varieties of Religious Experience

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

“Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.”

Ifs Said Different Philosophy Able Wonder Break Strange Prejudice Lays Familiar Fancy Native Plato Slumber Dogmatic Plato And Aristotle

Book:William James: Essays and Lectures

Source: William James: Essays and Lectures

“I think any kind of hiatus one takes in an artistic journey is going to make a huge difference. The pause will inform the choices that you make.”

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Author:Mel Gibson

“The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist, and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also; and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete, yet the two become continuous at certain points, and higher energies filter in.”

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Book:Writings, 1902-1910

Source: Writings, 1902-1910

“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.”

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Book:A Pluralistic Universe

Source: A Pluralistic Universe

“A paradise of inward tranquility seems to be faith's usual result.”

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Book:Writings, 1902-1910

Source: Writings, 1902-1910

“I do indeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on a given day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth about such matters of fact as those with which religions deal. But I reject this dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual instability. I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.”

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature

“Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease-spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can. We patch and tinker more than we renew. The novelty soaks in; it stains the ancient mass; but it is also tinged by what absorbs it.”

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Book:Pragmatism and the Conception of Thruth

Source: Pragmatism and the Conception of Thruth