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Quotes by Psychologist
"I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast."
107
"The unconscious is not a demoniacal monster, but a natural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and intellectual judgement go, is completely neutral. It only becomes dangerous when our conscious attitude to it is hopelessly wrong. To the degree that we repress it, its danger increases. But the moment the patient begins to assimilate contents that were previously unconscious, its danger diminishes. The dissociation of personality, the anxious division of the day-time and the night-time sides of the psyche, cease with progressive assimilation."
101
"If your neighbor has a completely different view on abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, all of those things, you still are both Americans. Neither one of you is necessarily more patriotic than the other. Neither loves their country any more than the other one does."
98
"It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning."
98
"Human folk are as a matter of fact eager to find intelligence in animals."
93
"The attitude of physiological psychology to sensations and feelings, considered as psychical elements, is, naturally, the attitude of psychology at large."
93
"If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?"
93
"Everything depends therefore on encountering thought at its source. Such thought is the reality of man's being, which achieved consciousness and understanding of itself through it."
93
"I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization."
92
"Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain."
90
"In genetic epistemology, as in developmental psychology, too, there is never an absolute beginning."
88
"We believe that civilization has been created under the pressure of the exigencies of life at the cost of satisfaction of the instincts."
88
"Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made."
85
"The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity."
85
"Learners are encouraged to discover facts and relationships for themselves."
85
"Depression is the inability to construct a future."
81
"A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success."
80
"But there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites, hence it is necessary to discover the opposite to the attitude of the conscious mind."
80
"A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence."
80
"The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown."
80
"Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life."
80
"The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done."
79
"What is this thing? trading passions for a tiny bit of acceptance."
79
"The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises."
79
"Why I write music? Because it hurts not to."
79
"The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?""
78
"Coming out to gays is a way of affirming sanity and self-worth."
78
"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers."
77
"The goal towards which the pleasure principle impels us - of becoming happy - is not attainable: yet we may not - nay, cannot - give up the efforts to come nearer to realization of it by some means or other."
77
"I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair; that's the human condition."
74
"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve."
74
"The true worth of an experimenter consists in his pursuing not only what he seeks in his experiment, but also what he did not seek."
74
"We must interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority."
74
"The voice of the intelligence is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance."
73
"I was discriminated against because I was Jewish, Italian, black and Puerto Rican. But maybe the worst prejudice I experienced was against the poor. I grew up on welfare and often had to move in the middle of the night because we couldn't pay the rent."
73
"Besides the practical knowledge which defeat offers, there are important personality profits to be taken."
73
"Adolescence is a new birth, for the higher and more completely human traits are now born."
73
"I started studying shyness in adults in 1972. Shyness operates at so many different levels. Out of that research came the Stanford shyness clinic in 1977."
72
"Man is largely a creature of habit, and many of his activities are more or less automatic reflexes from the stimuli of his environment."
72
"I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life."
72
"Every man of genius sees the world at a different angle from his fellows, and there is his tragedy."
72
"It is the patriotic duty of every man to lie for his country."
72
"I was free with every road as my home. No limitations and no commitments. But then summer passed and winter came and I fell short for safety. I fell for its spell, slowly humming me to sleep, because I was tired and small, too weak to take or handle those opinions and views, attacking me from every angle. Against my art, against my self, against my very way of living. I collected my thoughts, my few possessions and built isolated walls around my values and character. I protected my own definition of beauty and success like a treasure at the bottom of the sea, for no one saw what I saw, or felt the same as I did, and so I wanted to keep to myself. You hide to protect yourself."
72
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