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The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.
Charles Sanders Peirce
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that thinking leads to action, and belief is an intermediate step influenced by our thoughts.

Charles Sanders Peirce emphasizes that the ultimate goal of thinking is to take action, while belief serves as a transitional phase in our mental processes. He argues that our beliefs, shaped by previous thoughts, play a significant role in influencing our future thinking and actions.

Themes

ThinkingBeliefActionVolitionInfluence

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about the power of thoughts and beliefs in achieving goals.

More from Charles Sanders Peirce

Notwithstanding all that has been discovered since Newton's time, his saying that we are little children picking up pretty pebbles on the beach while the whole ocean lies before us unexplored remains substantially as true as ever, and will do so though we shovel up the pebbles by steam shovels and carry them off in carloads.
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My language is the sum total of myself.
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All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite.
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The third class consists of men to whom nothing seems great but reason. If force interests them, it is not in its exertion, but in that it has a reason and a law. For men of the first class, nature is a picture; for men of the second class, it is an opportunity; for men of the third class, it is a cosmos, so admirable, that to penetrate to its ways seems to them the only thing that makes life worth living. These are the men whom we see possessed by a passion to learn.
Charles Sanders PeirceRead
A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A law never can be embodied in its character as a law except by determining a habit. A quality is how something may or might have been. A law is how an endless future must continue to be.
Charles Sanders PeirceRead
In all the works on pedagogy that ever I read — and they have been many, big, and heavy — I don't remember that any one has advocated a system of teaching by practical jokes, mostly cruel. That, however, describes the method of our great teacher, Experience.
Charles Sanders PeirceRead

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