"What do believers in the Absolute mean by……" — William James
"What do believers in the Absolute mean by saving that their belief affords them comfort? They mean that since in the Absolute finite evil is ‘overruled’ already, we may, therefore, whenever we wish, treat the temporal as if it were potentially the eternal, be sure that we can trust its outcome, and, without sin, dismiss our fear and drop the worry of our finite responsibility. In short, they mean that we have a right ever and anon to take a moral holiday, to let the world wag in its own way, feeling that its issues are in better hands than ours and are none of our business."
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William James
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484 Quotes by William James
William James has 484 quotes on this site.
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I take it that no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide.
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Success plus Self-esteem equals Pretensions.
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To know psychology, therefore, is absolutely no guarantee that we shall be good teacher.
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There is a stream, a succession of states, or waves, or fields (or whatever you please to call them), of…
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Man, whatever else he may be, is primarily a practical being, whose mind is given him to aid in adapting…
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No reception without reaction, no impression without correlative expression, -this is the great maxim which the teacher ought never to…
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Habit is second nature, or rather . . . ten times nature.
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We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and as carefully…
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It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
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The entire routine of our memorized acquisitions is a consequence of nothing but the Law of Contiguity. The words of…
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Any object not interesting in itself may become interesting through becoming associated with an object in which an interest already…
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An idea will infect another with its own emotional interest when they have become both associated together into any sort…
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More Absolute Quotes
This quote is filed under Absolute Quotes,
one of 1,809 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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I love things that age well - things that don't date, that stand the test of time and that become…
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity,…
— Mikhail Bakunin
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But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and…
— Mikhail Bakunin
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Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.
— Henry Adams
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What may seem depressing or even tragic to one person may seem like an absolute scream to another person, especially…
— Dave Barry
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No sex, age, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one vastly beneath…
— Bruce Barton
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Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point…
— Simone de Beauvoir
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It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas…
— Simone de Beauvoir
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The truth, the absolute truth, is that the chief beauty for the theatre consists in fine bodily proportions.
— Sarah Bernhardt
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The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.
— Aneurin Bevan
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Once the last trace of emotion has been eradicated, nothing remains of thought but absolute tautology.
— Theodor Adorno
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