Quotes about Psychology

Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously over-compensates a secret doubt.

It is the study of how the human brain was designed—by natural selection—to mislead us, even enslave us.

Human nature consists of knobs and of mechanisms for tuning the knobs, and both are invisible in their own way.

An interesting question these psychologists tend not to ask is why the muscle metaphor is apt. In other words, why is it that early successes at self-discipline lead to more successes, whereas early lapses lead to more lapses? If self-discipline is really good for the organism, you wouldn't expect natural selection to make it so easy for a few early lapses to destroy self-discipline. Yet there's no denying that a few injections of heroin can be the end of a productive life. Why?

We are more heavily invested in the theories of failure than we are in the theories of success.

She was beginning to think that human beings had underground selves, always running, limpid, clear, even when everything in the personality appeared used up, dusty and dry.

Why does the mind do such things? Turn on us, rend us, dig the claws in. If you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. Maybe it's much the same.

The time is a critical one, for it marks the beginning of the second half of life, when a metanoia, a mental transformation, not infrequently occurs. (on being 36 yrs old)

I'm drawn to the psychology of really interesting, flawed people.

The man without emotions is the one to fear. But deep emotions…ah, now, those can be bent to your needs.

It is only the fundamental conceptions of psychology which are of real value to a teacher.

A purely psychological explanation is ruled out... the discs show signs of intelligent guidance, by quasi-human pilots.