What writer would dare to appropriate Voltaire's verse in Le Pauvre Diable, and would dare to say of his reader: Il me choisit pour l'aider à penser? Yet, it is a fact that millions of men and women are anxious to take lessons in the Art of Thinking and that some other men and women have to take the risk of seeming presumptuous in offering those lessons. Anybody who does it need not be a genius. Genius has never been supposed to be a particularly good teacher of any art. It is better that the teacher of the Art of Thinking should not be a person who knows no difficulty in thinking, or produces such brilliant thoughts that they will be disheartening to the tyro. A delicate physician does not give the example of health—any woodsman can do that—he only gives the example of a small capital of health intelligently increased: yet, we know he can be more useful from his comprehension of indifferent health and from his appreciation of hygiene, and we often prefer him. The author of this book is certainly not prepared to say that he has acted, or even is now acting, up to his own principles; still he is not bragging in saying that he has probably felt their value more than many people nearer to genius than he is. Is not this enough? And is not a keen desire to be of use a sufficient claim to give modest advice? The reader will soon find that this book, whatever its shortcomings, has been written for him. Its effort at being lucid and brief, its aversion to philosophical jargon, its antipathy for a discouraging and generally useless bibliographical display, all come from a wish to help instead of dazzle. Most books are composed with the more or less avowed object of being works of art, that is to say of being an end in themselves and ultimately rousing admiration. Egotism, in writing of any art, especially of an Art of Thinking, would be criminal, and it can be honestly said that it had as little a share as possible in the preparation of this work. It will be enough if the reader is conscious of sympathy to which he has a right, and of a continuous striving to help him in his effort to think his best and live his noblest.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

A new translation of the treatise which inspired modern developments in logic and semantic theory.

"If you want to get the results that a winner gets, you must first think like a winner thinks!' This is Dr. Walter Doyle Staples' premise in his new guide for everyone who wants to be successful and "win" at life. What makes some people successful and others unsuccessful? How do your thoughts and beliefs affect your chances of success? What can you do to better ensure that you will be a winner? In order to answer these questions and more, Dr. Staples has explored the qualities that are characteristic of successful people. What he has discovered is that we are limited in reaching our full potential by our faulty personal belief systems. These beliefs lead to inhibiting feelings such as fear of failure, rejection, and inadequacy-all feelings which work to prevent success by putting up barriers. Dr. Staples poses three questions that anyone interested in exploring their full potential in order to achieve a personal goal should ask themselves. Are you a compulsive goal-setter, setting a new goal every week? Do you have a "super achiever" attitude? Do you honestly believe you can do anything you set your mind to? This book will help readers achieve their success goals by teaching them to adopt and adapt core beliefs that will enable them to turn their life around. Packed with helpful exercises and inspiring quotes, Think Like a Winner! is a fascinating guide towards a better understanding of how the human mind works, and how one can act to ensure that he or she is a winner at life.

Historical records show that there was no real concept of probability in Europe before the mid-seventeenth century, although the use of dice and other randomizing objects was commonplace. First published in 1975, this edition includes an introduction that contextualizes his book in light of developing philosophical trends.

Cutting across literature, film, art, and philosophy, Art of the Ordinary is a trailblazing, cross-disciplinary engagement with the ordinary and the everyday. Because, writes Richard Deming, the ordinary is always at hand, it is, in fact, too familiar for us to perceive it and become fully aware of it. The ordinary he argues, is what most needs to be discovered and yet is something that can never be approached, since to do so is to immediately change it. Art of the Ordinary explores how philosophical questions can be revealed in surprising places—as in a stand-up comic’s routine, for instance, or a Brillo box, or a Hollywood movie. From negotiations with the primary materials of culture and community, ways of reading "self" and "other" are made available, deepening one’s ability to respond to ethical, social, and political dilemmas. Deming picks out key figures, such as the philosophers Stanley Cavell, Arthur Danto, and Richard Wollheim; poet John Ashbery; artist Andy Warhol; and comedian Steven Wright, to showcase the foundational concepts of language, ethics, and society. Deming interrogates how acts of the imagination by these people, and others, become the means for transforming the alienated ordinary into a presence of the everyday that constantly and continually creates opportunities of investment in its calls on interpretive faculties. In Art of the Ordinary, Deming brings together the arts, philosophy, and psychology in new and compelling ways so as to offer generative, provocative insights into how we think and represent the world to others as well as to ourselves.

In "The Dance of Life," H. Havelock Ellis studies the constant development of the self through a variety of arts, including thinking, morals, and dance. Ellis believes that life is art, mainly dance. He develops his metaphor by looking at some major institutions of life: religion, morality, the arts in general, and writing in particular.