William James Quotes

The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.

William James

• Genius
• Philosophical
• Essence
• Awareness

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Quotes to Explore

• Nietzsche claimed that his genius was in his nostrils and I think that is a very excellent place for it to be.

  

  Federico Fellini
  • Think
  • Place
  • Genius

• It seemed to me that the real philosophical breakthroughs of the 20th century were in terms of the understanding of language. What is language? Where does it come from, how does it work, what does it do?

  

  Hanif Kureishi
  • Work
  • Real
  • Me

• When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

  

  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Work
  • Nature
  • Genius

• What's genius about 'Gravity' is that you are close upon the actors, but 3D works best when you have foreground, middle ground and background.

  

  Gavin Hood
  • Best
  • Genius
  • Gravity

• The difference between being a victim and a survivor is often a low level of situational awareness. You can't be a super-spy, watchful and paranoid every day. But I am more watchful than the average American.

  

  Barry Eisler
  • Awareness
  • Victim
  • Survivor

• The Hindu nationalists see a religion near perfection save for the tampering of Muslims and Christians. So they fall upon these groups, rather than try to reform their own practices by drawing on India's sophisticated philosophical traditions.

  

  Karan Mahajan
  • Fall
  • Religion
  • Drawing

• Semiotics is a general theory of all existing languages... all forms of communication - visual, tactile, and so on... There is general semiotics, which is a philosophical approach to this field, and then there are many specific semiotics.

  

  Umberto Eco
  • Communication
  • Theory
  • Philosophical

• To the extent that philosophical positions both confuse us and close doors to further inquiry, they are likely to be wrong.

  

  E. O. Wilson
  • Wrong
  • Doors
  • Philosophical

• True refuge is that which allows us to be at home, at peace, to discover true happiness. The only thing that can give us true refuge is the awareness and love that is intrinsic to who we are. Ultimately, it's our own true nature.

  

  Tara Brach
  • True
  • Nature
  • Happiness

• To understand Europe, you have to be a genius - or French.

  

  Madeleine Albright
  • You
  • Understand
  • Genius

• Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

  

  E. F. Schumacher
  • Courage
  • Fool
  • Intelligent

• Nike was the essence of sports, transcendence through sports.

  

  Naomi Klein
  • Sports
  • Essence
  • Through

• A modern-day Dickens with a popular voice and a genius for storytelling in any genre, Stephen King has written many wonderful books.

  

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  • King
  • Voice
  • Popular

• Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you.

  

  Malcolm Cowley
  • You
  • Talent
  • Genius

• The forms of my awareness are richer than yours.

  

  Hans Bender
  • Awareness
  • Richer
  • Yours

• I don't read for plot, a story 'about' this or that. There must be some kind of philosophical depth rendered into the language, something happening.

  

  Rachel Kushner
  • Kind
  • Language
  • Story

• The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

  

  Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Man
  • Confidence
  • Genius

• When I was very young I was sort of floored by the fact that my mother and my father and everyone I knew was going to die one day, and myself too. I had a sort of a philosophical crisis. I couldn't believe that we were mortal.

  

  Lana Del Rey
  • Believe
  • Mother
  • Father

• My first degree was in mathematics. That was great, but it didn't help with many of the things that puzzled me. I became a philosopher because I wanted to understand everything, especially those things that didn't make sense. And that has continued to be my philosophical motivation. That's one reason I have such a roving philosophical eye - once I have figured out a philosophical topic to my satisfaction, I find myself moving on to new problems.

  

  David Papineau
  • Problem
  • Helping
  • motivation

• He has fantastic powers. He can be imperious, abrupt, impatient with sloppy procedures, but he is also poetic, visionary, romantic. He is possessed by two geniuses: dry-eyed, rigorous exactitude, and generous leaps of imagination - non-rigid, non-uniform and innovative.

  

  Warren Winiarski
  • Imagination
  • Genius
  • Fantastic

• The gospel is the proclamation of the person and work of Jesus Christ and how those benefits can be applied to us by faith alone.

  

  R. C. Sproul
  • Work
  • Faith
  • Alone

• May I examine my mind in all actions and as soon as a negative state occurs, since it endangers myself and others, may I firmly face and avert it.

  

  Dalai Lama
  • Mind
  • May
  • Negative

• Ronald Reagan, of course, was a Republican governor of California who went through a painful defeat in the 1976 presidential race before winning four years later

  

  Michael Medved
  • Winning
  • California
  • Presidential

• The essence of genius is to know what to overlook.

  

  William James
  • Genius
  • Philosophical
  • Essence