Psychologist Quotes

For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.

When a depressed person shrinks away from your touch it does not mean he is rejecting you. Rather he is protecting you from the foul, destructive evil which he believes is the essence of his being and which he believes can injure you.

Every avenue which could lead to an increase of our knowledge deserves to be followed, regardless of the consequences. This is the professional code, or rather one of the professional codes, we find in men of science.

For most of us even the imagined threat of criticism functions to control our behavior. We are haunted to some degree by questions about our self-worth. As a consequence, we continually attempt to prove to ourselves and others that we are okay people, credible, trustworthy, and competent.

A paradox arises: the only way to meaning in freedom is through boundaries. The only way that boundaries make any sense at all is through freedom.

Clark Moustakas

If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.

Universities are renowned for their tolerance of unusual characters, especially if they show originality and dedication to their research. I have often made the comment that not only are universities a 'cathedral' for worship of knowledge, they are also 'sheltered workshops' for the socially challenged.

There is no single best kind of death. A good death is one that is "appropriate" for that person. It is a death in which the hand of the way of dying slips easily into the glove of the act itself. It is in character, ego-syntonic. It, the death, fits the person. It is a death that one might choose if it were realistically possible for one to choose one's own death.

Edwin S. Shneidman

For the sensory thinker, the world of the mind bears a direct physical resemblance to the world outside.

One of the most powerful wellsprings of creative energy, outstanding accomplishment, and self-fulfillment seems to be falling in love with something - your dreams, your image of the future.

Ellis Paul Torrance

When evaluating the reliability and generality of data, it is often important to know the aims of the experimenter. When evaluating the importance of experimental results, however, science has a trick of disregarding the experimenter's rationale and finding a more appropriate context for the data than the one he proposed.

Change does not fail to occur because of insincerity. The heart patient is not insincere about his wish to keep living, even as he reaches for another cigarette. Change fails to occur because we mean both things. It fails to occur because we are a living contradiction.

A cognitive architecture specifies aspects of an intelligent system that are stable over time, much as in a building's architecture. These include the memories that store perceptions, beliefs, and knowledge, the representation of elements that are contained in these memories, the performance mechanisms that use them, and the learning processes that build on them. Such a framework typically comes with a programming language and software environment that supports the efficient construction of knowledge-based systems.

Consumerism is hard to describe when it's the ocean and we're the plankton.

Geoffrey Miller (psychologist)

We hear a lot of talk these days about teaching values in higher education. Frankly, I am not sure this can be accomplished through a separate course in morality or ethics. I am convinced, however, that values are sustained on campus by the honesty of our words, and by the confidence we have in the words of others.

Ernest L. Boyer

I have found that fate is as liquid and elusive a word as love. Plato thought they were the same... Novalis wrote that fate and soul are two names for the same principle.

Imagine how dull life would be if variables assessed for admission to a graduate program really did predict who would succeed and who would fall. Life would be intolerable - no hope, no challenge

Growth and change are never easy...If it were easy, you would have done it long ago.

Lawrence LeShan

In going beyond what is already known, one cannot but go blindly. If one can go wisely, this indicates already achieved wisdom of some general sort.

Donald T. Campbell

In spite of some unresolved issues, the close match we have found between mental rotation and their counterparts in the physical world leads inevitably to speculations about the functions and origin of human spatial imagination. It may not be premature to propose that spatial imagination has evolved as a reflection of the physics and geometry of the external world. The rules that govern structures and motions in the physical world may, over evolutionary history, have been incorporated into human perceptual machinery, giving rise to demonstrable correspondences between mental imagery and its physical analogues.

The best answer to the question, 'What is the most effective method of teaching?' is that it depends on the goal, the student, the content, and the teacher. But the next best answer is, 'Students teaching other students.'

Wilbert J. McKeachie

It's the same mathematics, whether it's applied or not. It's just important to think of a problem in a general context. I really think all mathematics is applicable.

Louis Leon Thurstone

Attainment is a poor measure of capacity, and ignorance no proof of defect.

It is evident, therefore, that one of the most fundamental problems of psychology is that of investigating the laws of mental growth. When these laws are known, the door of the future will in a measure be opened; determination of the child's present status will enable us to forecast what manner of adult he will become.

Any theory intended to describe and analyze socio-historical reality cannot restrict itself to the human spirit and disregard the totality of human nature.

Wilhelm Dilthey