William James Quotes

The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.

William James

• Mind
• Science
• Attention
• Progress

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Quotes to Explore

• Republicans rarely criticize Obama for lack of empathy - in part because liberals have traditionally been seen as standing up for the weak and the vulnerable. Conservatives can be just as empathetic. But they believe that, in most cases, it's not government's role to be the primary dispenser of empathy.

  

  Gary Bauer
  • Up
  • Believe
  • Government

• General Giap was one of the most brilliant military strategists of our era, who in Dien Bien Phu was able to place missile launchers in remote, mountainous jungles, something the yankee and European military officers considered impossible.

  

  Fidel Castro
  • Military
  • Place
  • Impossible

• Up until the end of the Bush Administration, there was indifference to the North Korean suffering under Kim Jong-Il.

  

  Ed Royce
  • Up
  • Suffering
  • End

• I build community. However, I do it wearing a number of hats.

  

  Cameron Sinclair
  • Community
  • Build
  • Hats

• I love to be with my son and my grandchildren, like normal people. I have no particular idea of what I represent to other people. It's very mysterious to me. I don't understand it.

  

  Omar Sharif
  • People
  • Love
  • Son

• Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.

  

  Edmund Burke
  • Free
  • Justice
  • Trade

• I think if I heard someone else talking about their life, describing all the problems I've had, they'd look like they were through. Done. But there's something about me - I'm smiling. Those things are really not bad enough to put me in a slump. I'm smiling with the opportunity to wake up every morning.

  

  Nas
  • Life
  • Up
  • Done

• Brandon Boyd of Incubus is hot, but he's too pretty.

  

  Rachel Perry
  • Pretty
  • Hot
  • Too

• I am interested in the way that we look at a given landscape and take possession of it in our blood and brain. None of us lives apart from the land entirely; such an isolation is unimaginable.

  

  N. Scott Momaday
  • Land
  • Landscape
  • Isolation

• When I was 13, I started working in a nightclub with Ray Charles. That's the greatest school in the world, the school of the streets. Ray taught me how to read in Braille. He was only two years older than me, but it was like he was 100 years older.

  

  Quincy Jones
  • World
  • School
  • Greatest

• The older you get, the more comfortable you become with yourself, and you accept what you have physically.

  

  Victoria Beckham Spice Girls
  • You
  • Yourself
  • Accept

• It may well be our brains are wired up to be slightly more optimistic than they should be.

  

  Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
  • Up
  • May
  • More

• I told my agent which women I aspire to have a career like: Frances McDormand, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney and Emma Thompson - character actresses who have something to say. I also said that I loved Madeline Kahn and Jessica Lange.

  

  Rachael Harris
  • Women
  • Character
  • Career

• What has history said of eminence without honor, wealth without wisdom, power and possessions without principle? The answer is reiterated in the overthrow of the mightiest empires of ancient times. Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome! The four successive, universal powers of the past. What and where are they?

  

  Orson F. Whitney
  • Power
  • History
  • Past

• You want to come home to a nice firm bed with the corners tucked in so you start over, like each night is like a new night.

  

  Gabrielle Union
  • Home
  • Night
  • Nice

• If I'm so popular, why did they replace me with Tommy Thayer?

  

  Ace Frehley Kiss
  • Why
  • Me
  • Popular

• I would love to work with Matt Damon.

  

  Idina Menzel
  • Work
  • Love
  • Would

• I don't know anyone who likes the American League games better. Maybe some fans do. But if you're not an actual DH, you probably prefer the National League.

  

  Zack Greinke
  • American
  • Know
  • Better

• Slow parents understand that childrearing should not be a cross between a competitive sport and product-development. It is not a project; it's a journey. Slow parenting is about giving kids lots of love and attention with no conditions attached.

  

  Carl Honore
  • Love
  • Kids
  • Parents

• I've always loved that, on all the Dylan and Springsteen and Marley and Neil Young reissues that they've done: It's so cool to hear alternate versions and how the song started in their mind.

  

  James Edward Olliges Jr.
  • Mind
  • Done
  • Song

• My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion, and many things that seem wonderful to most men are the every-day commonplaces of my business.

  

  Harry Houdini
  • Business
  • Professional Life
  • Disillusion

• I am a ball player in the summer and a farmer in the winter time, and I aim to be a success at both professions.

  

  Zack Wheat
  • Time
  • Success
  • Player

• Gosh, for me, when I was 15 or 16 years old, I was just starting to understand ideas and film and things like that. And then, you go see a movie like 'The Matrix' that absolutely blows your mind. It's not just trying to entertain you, but it's also trying to explore something about human nature and ask some really deep questions.

  

  Brian J. Smith
  • Mind
  • Trying
  • Movie

• The function of ignoring, of inattention, is as vital a factor in mental progress as the function of attention itself.

  

  William James
  • Mind
  • Science
  • Attention