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An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: "There is very little… — William James

An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: "There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important." This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.

William James
The Will to Believe · 1896
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Difference
Time
1896
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William James
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James, William. "The Importance of Individuals." The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897.

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I firmly disbelieve, myself, that our human experience is the highest form of experience extant in the universe. I believe rather that we stand in much the same relation to the whole of the universe as our canine and feline pets do to the whole of human life. They inhabit our drawing-rooms and libraries. They take part in scenes of whose significance they have no inkling. They are merely tangent to curves of history the beginnings and ends and forms of which pass wholly beyond their ken. So we are tangent to the wider life of things.

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