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It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

— William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

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More quotes by William James

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Pacifists ought to enter more deeply into the aesthetical and ethical point of view of their opponents.

The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

The Principles of Psychology (1890)

The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.

Collected Essays and Reviews (1920)

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.

The Letters of William James (1920)

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Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Thomas Jefferson Letter to Peter Carr (1787)

I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.

Colin Wilson Postscript to the Outsider (1967)

Love is the active, working principle in all true faith. It is its very soul, without which it is dead. "Faith works by love."

Jonathan Edwards Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Imagination is a force that can actually manifest a reality.

James Cameron

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William James (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.