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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.

— William James The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

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Happiness

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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The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

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The key to self-generated happiness (the only reliable kind) is the refusal to take oneself too seriously.

Tom Robbins High Times interview (2002)

It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

Cary Grant Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy.

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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.