The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.
Interpretation
The existence of virtuous individuals suggests a reason for immortality.
William James argues that the presence of morally upright and deserving individuals in the world presents a compelling argument for the concept of eternal life. This idea postulates that those who demonstrate exceptional character or contribute significantly to the well-being of others should be rewarded with immortality, thus giving purpose to the notion of an afterlife.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the legacy of great leaders.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony.
It is astonishing how many mental operations we can explain when we have once grasped the principles of association
As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
When philosophers try to be politicians they generally cease to be philosophers.
Die happily and look forward to taking up a new and better form. Like the sun, only when you set in the west can you rise in the east.
Man only remains hypnotised with the false idea of an ego. When this ghost is off from us, all dreams vanish, and then it is found that the one Self only exists from the highest Being to a blade of grass.
Our brain accepts what the eyes see and our eye looks for whatever our brain wants.
It is people who are important, not the masses.
I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.
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