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"Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome ...and well-dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a 'tone poet' and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal."
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"Setting fire to the roofs, getting away with the loot, suiting herself. She studied modern philosophy, read Sartre on the side, smoked Gitanes, and cultivated a look of bored contempt. But inwardly, she was seething with unfocused excitement, and looking for someone to worship."

"She liked getting hold of some book... and keeping it to herself, and gnawing its contents in privacy, and pondering the meaning without sharing her thoughts with any one, or having to decide whether the book was a good one or a bad one."

"Due to the monstrous activity of a handful of extremists, the majority of the human society has been conditioned to believe that the term 'musalman' is somehow synonymous with terrorism. But the reality is, the term 'musalman' refers to someone with 'musallam iman,' that means, a pure conscience. Thus any individual whose conscience is pure and clear, is a musalman or muslim, regardless of socio-religious background. Likewise, any human being who loves his or her neighbor is a Christian. Hence, scriptures can't define your religion, only your actions with other people do."

"We are all worms but I do believe that I am a glow-worm."

"Songs of myselfI am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,.."

"Either way, you were connected. By your desires. By your defiance. By the simple, complicated fact of who you were."
Explore more quotes by William James


"The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments."


"We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause."


"The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds."


"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."


"An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: 'There is very little difference between one man and another but what there is is very important.'"


"Science must constantly be reminded that her purposes are not the only purposes and that the order of uniform causation which she has use for and is therefore right in postulating may be enveloped in a wider order on which she has no claim at all."
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