William James Quotes

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

William James

• Thinking
• Mean
• Effort

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Quotes to Explore

• I'm good at description and imparting flow to a story, but I don't necessarily understand the value of long scenes.

  

  Karan Mahajan
  • Good
  • Long
  • Value

• California has always led the way on environmental protection and always reaped the benefits, pioneering everything from catalytic convertors on cars to stationary source reduction.

  

  Ed Begley, Jr.
  • California
  • Environmental

• On 'Death Valley,' I fought this werewolf, and he was picking me up and slamming me down. They put padding down in the garbage so he could really slam me down. They're flying around and I'm doing these jumping flying triangles pulling the guy down. It's just fun.

  

  Caity Lotz
  • Up
  • Fun
  • Guy

• Service to others seems the only intelligent choice for the use of wealth.

  

  Manoj Bhargava
  • Service
  • Intelligent
  • Choice

• We want to encourage people. We want to help them. We want them to see all the good things God has placed in them and give them a right future.

  

  Victoria Osteen
  • People
  • Good
  • God

• I will never support any tax increase on middle-income earners, ever... If you're not going to eliminate loopholes and exemptions, then I wouldn't support lowering rates.

  

  Adam Hasner
  • You
  • Support
  • Tax

• Often, what you see in the media is driven by economic forces.

  

  Iris Chang
  • See
  • Media
  • Economic

• I'm confident in my ability to maintain a career. I don't know if it will be doing either independent films or plays in New England.

  

  Randy Harrison
  • Career
  • Know
  • Independent

• A lot of people think I had such a rosy career, but I wanted to identify that one of the things that helps you have a long career is learning how to deal with adversity, how to get past it. Once I learned how to get through that, others things didn't seem so hard.

  

  Cal Ripken, Jr.
  • People
  • Long
  • Career

• Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • English
  • Baseball
  • Italian

• I'm a hoot and a half, I like to think.

  

  Xosha Roquemore
  • Think
  • Like
  • Half

• I like the language in Proust but not the context.

  

  Karl Lagerfeld
  • Like
  • Language
  • Context

• I wasn't making music consciously when I was younger. I was a musician, but that has its own stigmas. Anywhere on the planet, it's one of the more undervalued positions.

  

  Keinan Abdi Warsame
  • Music
  • More
  • Planet

• If you want to go east, don't go west.

  

  Ramakrishna
  • Want
  • You
  • Wisdom

• Everyone puts all of the advances that we've made on Dr. King, but there's a lot of people who were part of the civil rights movement.

  

  Ilyasah Shabazz
  • People
  • King
  • Civil Rights

• I know what I try to do. I try to be professional, turn up, not make too much fuss, do the job.

  

  Eddie Marsan
  • Up
  • Job
  • Know

• When you're having conversations about actors, you realize these same conversations have happened about you. If you want to make a film for $5m, then you cast A, B and C, but if you want $20m, you won't be able to cast them, you need X, Y and Z.

  

  Paddy Considine
  • Want
  • You
  • Realize

• It's really fun to see a movie that you've heard about that's really good.

  

  Parker Posey
  • Good
  • Movie
  • Fun

• If I'm flying to China, I can sit and think about a problem. Other scientists have to go to the lab. I'm always thinking about maths, even when I'm doing other things. A lot of the time you're going up blind alleys and it's very frustrating, but then you have a sudden rush of ideas. You can live off that for quite some time.

  

  Marcus du Sautoy
  • Up
  • Time
  • Thinking

• The challenge to writers today, I think, is not to disown any part of our heritage. Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tried. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will never be new again. It is only the vision that can be new; but that is enough.

  

  Eudora Welty
  • Thinking
  • Writing
  • Today

• That's what I think works the best, and what I think makes the best comedy - something that's completely committed and more approached as an acting exercise, as opposed to being worried about whether to be funny or not. The comedy comes from the context.

  

  Will Ferrell
  • Thinking
  • Acting
  • Exercise

• When a man dies he clutches in his hands only that which he has given away during his lifetime.

  

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Men
  • Poverty
  • Lifetime

• Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

  

  William James
  • Thinking
  • Mean
  • Effort