When two minds of a high order, interested in kindred subjects, come together, their conversation is chiefly remarkable for the summariness of its allusions and the rapidity of its transitions. Before one of them is half through a sentence the other knows his meaning and replies. ... His mental lungs breathe more deeply, in an atmosphere more broad and vast.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the depth and efficiency of communication between highly intellectual individuals who share similar interests.
William James emphasizes the profound connection between two intellectually gifted individuals engaged in conversation about subjects they are passionate about. He suggests that their discussions are characterized by rapid understanding and seamless exchanges, indicating a shared cognitive space that allows for deeper comprehension and quicker responses. This synergy enhances their ability to think and communicate more broadly and deeply, akin to breathing in a vast, open atmosphere.
In practice
This quote can be used in a seminar on communication skills among 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.
What I'm concerned with is what I would call the missing history - the invisible imprint of our stay on Earth and in time.
Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential youthfulness.
There's no reason to assume that my idea of what's better would really be better. I resent it when other people try to inflict their ideas of betterness on me. I don't think they know. And I can't see any authority on the horizon that's got any answers that seem worthwhile. Most of the things that are suggested are probably detrimental to your mental health.
Satan can make men dance upon the brink of hell as though they were on the verge of heaven.
I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience.
When the gospel is at stake, everything is at stake.
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