Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.
William JamesThe entire routine of our memorized acquisitions, for example, is a consequence of nothing but the Law of Contiguity. The words of a poem, the formulas of trigonometry, the facts of history, the properties of material things, are all known to us as definite systems or groups of objects which cohere in an order fixed by innumerable iterations, and of which any one part reminds us of the others.
William JamesThere is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough.
William JamesEvil is a disease; and worry over disease is itself an additional form of disease, which only adds to the original complaint.
William James