Psychology Quotes

There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be "the man in the street." Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.

Through others we become ourselves.

There are... for us no instincts—we no longer need the term in psychology. Everything we have been in the habit of calling an 'instinct' today is a result largely of training—belonging to man's learned behavior.

Maturity is the ability to postpone gratification.

You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one

If you are not prepared to look at your pupils strength's, don't touch their weaknesses.

There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding.

Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin.

When I look at the world I'm pessimistic, but when I look at people I am optimistic.

It is the client who knows what hurts, what directions to go, what problems are crucial, what experiences have been deeply buried.

If it's not one thing, it's your mother.

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.

Problem talk creates problems, Solution talk creates solutions.

Oh! This'll impress you - I'm actually in the Abnormal Psychology textbook. Obviously my family is so proud. Keep in mind though, I'm a PEZ dispenser and I'm in the abnormal Psychology textbook. Who says you can't have it all?

The aim of Positive Psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life.

A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.

This dogma (the soul) has been present in human psychology from earliest antiquity. No one has ever touched the soul, or has seen one in a test tube, or has in any way come into a relationship with it as he has with the other objects of his daily experience.

Psychology should be just as concerned with building strength as with repairing damage

So Positive Psychology takes seriously the bright hope that if you find yourself stuck in the parking lot of life, with few and only ephemeral pleasures, with minimal gratifications, and without meaning, there is a road out. This road takes you through the countryside of pleasure and gratification, up into the high country of strength and virtue, and finally to the peaks of lasting fulfillment: meaning and purpose

When well-being comes from engaging our strengths and virtues, our lives are imbued with authenticity.

The materialistic point of view in psychology can claim, at best, only the value of an heuristic hypothesis.

I sometimes lie, especially about personal things, because what does it matter? I am a kind of minute commodity. My name is no longer my own. I try to lie as much as I can when I’m interviewed. It’s reverse psychology. I figure if you lie, they’ll print the truth.

It is still open to question whether psychology is a natural science, or whether it can be regarded as a science at all.

I'd always had an interest in physiotherapy and psychology.

Psychopaths view any social exchange as a ‘feeding opportunity,’ a contest or a test of wills in which there can be only one winner. Their motives are to manipulate and take, ruthlessly and without remorse.