...(1705-1793) The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise. —Tacitus (55? -130?) There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. —William James (1842-1910) The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions....

...Ultimately, James concludes, "the more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers...of mind will be set free for their own proper work" ( 1 1-1 2). In what is evidently a Taylorist fantasy of efficiency displaced from the factory to the...

...Thomas Huxley, 1825-1895 ~ in Leonard Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, Vol 2, 1900 There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. ~ William James, 1842-1910 ~ Principles of Psychology, 1890 If you take too long in deciding what to...

...is thirty. Before that, they may be in flux. And this setting of habit is as it should be, because "there is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision." In Noel Coward's Brief Encounter (1945), both the "ordinary" housewife, played by Celia Johnson, and...

...good rules is always a dangerous business. It easily becomes a bad habit. William James observed that "There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision."10 Indeed, to be without good habits is not only to be miserable but to lack practical...

...dailiness is subordinate: 'The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers...of mind will be set free for their own proper work' (Psy 160). By implication, 'the details of our daily life' are distinct from, and less important than,...

...you'll be doing it a whole lot better! Man can alter his life by altering his thinking. William James There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. William James Introduction Your progress chart In order to know how far you've progressed when you...

...can, and guard against growing into ways that are disadvantageous... There is no more miserable person than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed everyday and the beginning of every bit...

...'{ against the plague. The more of the details of oui daily life we .can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers...every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, - arc subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding,...

...guard agaiibt the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers...miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual hut indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising...