A Quote by William James

When a thing is new, people say: ‘It is not true.’ Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: ‘It is not important.’ Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say: ‘Anyway, it is not new.
Whenever a new discovery is reported to the world, they say first, It is probably not true, Then after, when the truth of the new proposition has been demonstrated beyond question, they say, Yes, it may be true, but it is not important. Finally, when sufficient time has elapsed to fully evidence its importance, they say, Yes, surely it is important, but it is no longer new.
Whenever a new finding is reported to the world people say - It is probably not true. Later on, when the reliability of a new finding has been fully confirmed, people say - OK, it may be true but it has no real significance. At last, when even the significance of the finding is obvious to everybody, people say - Well, it might have some significance, but the idea is not new.
I cannot agree with those who say that they have 'new truth' to teach. The two words seem to me to contradict each other; that which is new is not true. It is the old that is true, for truth is as old as God himself.
This is true for most new products. The majority of people you're competing with are non-users. They are people who have never used your service before. And what they say is actually the most important. What they say is the thing that blocks you from expanding the size of your market with your features.
There may never be anything new to say, but there is always a new way to say it, and since, in art, the way of saying a thing becomes a part of what is said, every work of art is unique and requires fresh attention.
Maybe scientists are fundamentalist when it comes to defining in some abstract way what is meant by 'truth'. But so is everybody else. I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it.
I stopped listening to what people say. For me, the most important thing is what my family says, what my coaches say, what my friends say. What people that I never see in my life and what they say? Who cares?
I don't want to make light of the importance of my musical upbringing, as you cannot avoid being influenced by the area you grow up, but I will say that Reykjavik's geography is very different from, say, New York, Paris, or Copenhagen. There's big skies. The buildings are low. The landscape is spread out.
The thing that alarms me is that there are so many clergymen who say that the so-called 'new morality' is all right. They say we're living in a new generation; let's be relevant, let's change God's law. Let's say that adultery is all right under certain circumstances; fornication's all right under certain circumstances. If it's 'meaningful.'
New Orleans cats don't play a lot of solos unless they got something to say. It's not an ego thing like it is with some other musicians. You say what you gotta say and then shut up.
What people say often precedes what they think. Some people sometimes say, "I have to hear myself talk before I know what I think." I think language sometimes, because it opens new channels, it opens new doors, is enormously important.
Find a way to say “Yes” to things. Say yes to invitations to a new country, say yes to meet new friends, say yes to learning a new language, picking up a new sport. Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job. Yes is how you find your spouse, and even your kids.
People say you have to know when to retire, which is a dumb thing to say. If you want to go out on top, yeah, it becomes important when you quit. But I wasn't afraid of that. And I wasn't worried about getting fired. I knew the risk. To me, it's not an ego thing. I enjoy coaching. I enjoy helping people achieve something.
If you have something important to say, Broadway and New York are great places to say it.
The most obvious answer, that you can read in any leadership book is this - learn to say "no" so that you can make time for the important stuff, the stuff that is closest to your heart. And of course, as all entrepreneurs will say, "surround yourself with good people". That is the hardest thing : finding good people.
I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say.
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