"The one who thinks over his experiences..." - Quote by William James
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.
More by William James
“If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill. But more important than that, practicing this philosophy has made a different person of me.”
“A Beethoven string-quartet is truly, as some one has said, a scraping of horses' tails on cats' bowels, and may be exhaustively described in such terms; but the application of this description in no way precludes the simultaneous applicability of an entirely different description.”
“'Pure experience' is the name I gave to the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories.”
More on Memory
“A good memory and a tongue tied in the middle is a combination which gives immortality to conversation.”
“The ecstasy is so short but the forgetting is so long.”
“Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again, it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence. How happens it that the associations it awakens are always pleasing, never saddening, reminiscences of our sanest hours. The voice of nature is always encouraging.”
More on Thinking
“Always strive to find out what to do by thinking, without asking anybody. If you continually do this, you will soon act like a grown-up woman. For want of doing this, a very great number of grown-up people act like children.”
“No book is of much importance; the vital thing is, What do you yourself think?”
“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”