The one who thinks over his experiences most, and weaves them into systematic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory.
William JamesThe first effect of the mind growing cultivated is that processes once multiple get to be performed in a single act. Lazarus has called this the progressive "condensation" of thought. ... Steps really sink from sight. An advanced thinker sees the relations of his topics is such masses and so instantaneously that when he comes to explain to younger minds it is often hard ... Bowditch, who translated and annotated Laplace's Mรฉchanique Cรฉleste, said that whenever his author prefaced a proposition by the words "it is evident," he knew that many hours of hard study lay before him.
William JamesThe greatest discovery of the 20th Century is that our attitude of mind determines our quality of life, not circumstances.
William JamesMillions of items in the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind --without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos.
William James