Psychology Quotes - Page 32

• Evolution is an indispensable component of any satisfying explanation of our psychology.

  Steven Pinker

  Evolution, Indispensable, Explanation

  4 Copy quote

• Equity feminism is a moral doctrine about equal treatment that makes no commitments regarding open empirical issues in psychology or biology.

  Steven Pinker

  Commitment, Equal Treatment, Issues

  Steven Pinker (2003). “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p.451, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Morality is not just any old topic in psychology but close to our conception of the meaning of life. Moral goodness is what gives each of us the sense that we are worthy human beings.

  Steven Pinker

  Giving, Meaning Of Life, Moral Goodness

  5 Copy quote

• There's a common criticism of evolutionary psychology that it's fatalistic and it dooms us to eternal strife, 'Why even try to work toward peace if we're just bloody killer apes and violence is in our genes?'

  Steven Pinker

  Criticism, Trying, Killers

  7 Copy quote

• Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist.

  Steven Pinker

  Mind, Woven, Fabric

  24 Copy quote

• Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics.

  Steven Pinker

  Memories, Mind, Anecdotes

  "Steven Pinker: fighting talk from the prophet of peace". Interview with John Naughton, www.theguardian.com. October 15, 2011.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

  Alexander Pope

  God, Men, Religion

  An Essay on Man Epistle 2, l. 1 (1733) See Charron 1

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• In life, particularly in public life, psychology is more powerful than logic.

  Ludwig Quidde

  Powerful, Logic, Public Life

  8 Copy quote

• I find that communication as an actor and person is an important part of who I am. And I'm really drawn into the psychology of those dynamics.

  Zachary Quinto

  Communication, Who I Am, Important

  4 Copy quote

• Psychology doesn't like to talk about evil. It likes to talk about bad childhoods. But I very much believe that some people are evil and motivation is not necessary for evil.

  Laura Schlessinger

  Motivation, Believe, People

  6 Copy quote

• What tipped the scales was that psychology involved working with rats.

  Morrie Schwartz

  Rats, Scales, Involved

  Morrie Schwartz (2011). “Morrie In His Own Words: Life Wisdom From a Remarkable Man”, p.3, Pan Macmillan

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'd always been interested in psychology.

  Morrie Schwartz

  Morrie Schwartz (2011). “Morrie In His Own Words: Life Wisdom From a Remarkable Man”, p.3, Pan Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm an anarchist. I'm implacably opposed to heirarchical systems of power and control. I also mistrust crowds, as they often operate according to their lowest common denominator. In terms of evolutionary psychology, the crowd is very close to a herd of stampeding wildebeest.

  Will Self

  Crowds, Common, Anarchist

  23 Copy quote

• There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Positive, Happiness

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [259]

  189 Copy quote

  Show source

• A very elementary exercise in psychology, not to be dignified by the name of psycho-analysis, showed me, on looking at my notebook, that the sketch of the angry professor had been made in anger. Anger had snatched my pencil while I dreamt. But what was anger doing there? Interest, confusion, amusement, boredom--all these emotions I could trace and name as they succeeded each other throughout the morning. Had anger, the black snake, been lurking among them? Yes, said the sketch, anger had.

  Virginia Woolf

  Notebook, Morning, Exercise

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.583, Wordsworth Editions

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Children have no use for psychology. They detest sociology. They still believe in God, the family, angels, devils, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other such obsolete stuff. When a book is boring, they yawn openly. They don't expect their writer to redeem humanity, but leave to adults such childish allusions.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Children, Believe, Book

  10 Copy quote

• Many doctors are drawn to this profession (psychology) because they have an innate deficiency of insight into the motives, feelings and thoughts of others, a deficiency they hope to remedy by ingesting masses of data.

  William S. Burroughs

  Doctors, Data, Feelings

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I studied psychology in school, and the best psychology is in literature. It's so much easier to understand a character than a theory. You can recognize yourself—or other people—in a different way.

  Natalie Portman

  School, Character, People

  4 Copy quote

• Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the researchers and anyone who would claim to have discovered the opposite. No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it's all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another.

  Steven Pinker

  Dream, Selfish, Book

  "How the Mind Works". Book by Steven Pinker, 1997.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• My fear represented the failure of the human system. It is a sad truth of our creation: Something is amiss in our design, there are loose ends of our psychology that are simply not wrapped up. My fears were the dirty secrets of evolution. They were not provided for, and I was forced to construct elaborate temples to house them.

  Steve Martin

  Dirty, House, Design

  Steve Martin (2004). “The pleasure of my company”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some of my Arcanum bunkmates taught me a card game called dogs-breath. I returned the favor by giving an impromptu lesson in psychology, probability, and manual dexterity. I won almost two whole talents before they stopped inviting me back to their games.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Dog, Games, Two

  "The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 1)". Book by Patrick Rothfuss, March 27, 2007.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. It enslaves him almost before he has tasted freedom. The 'ologies' will tell you how its done Theology calls it building a conscience or developing a spirit of selflessness. Psychology calls it the growth of the superego. Considering how long society has been at it, you'd expect a better job. But the campaigns have been badly planned and the victory has never been secured.

  B. F. Skinner

  Jobs, Long, Growth

  18 Copy quote

• You know how it is when you go to be the subject of a psychology experiment and nobody else shows up and you think maybe that's part of the experiment? I'm like that all the time.

  Steven Wright

  Funny, Humor, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Astrology is assured of recognition from psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.

  Carl Jung

  Astrology, Recognition, Psychological

  18 Copy quote

• Then I realized what separated us: what I thought about him could not reach him; it was psychology, the kind they write about in books. But his judgment went through me like a sword and questioned my very right to exist. And it was true, I had always realized it; I hadn't the right to exist. I had appeared by chance, I existed like a stone, a plant or a microbe. My life put out feelers towards small pleasures in every direction. Sometimes it sent out vague signals; at other times I felt nothing more than a harmless buzzing.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Book, Writing, Small Pleasures

  4 Copy quote