The 100 Best Phrases From Great Psychologists In History
Psychology is a fundamental part of the History of humanity, because our own existence is based on adaptive behaviors, behaviors, survival instincts and management of emotions. Elements that build us as people and evolutionary beings in the midst of societies.
If you want to know some of the most inspiring and powerful ideas that have emerged in the development of this science, you will be interested in this selection of the best phrases from great psychologists in history
10. Truth has a fictional structure. (Jacques Lacan)
No truth is exact.
11. The ability to pause and not act on the first impulse has become crucial learning in daily life. (Daniel Goleman)
Impulsiveness takes us to places where sometimes there is no return.
12. The chains and walls of the home are not clearly seen, they are almost always invisible, although no less real or insurmountable. (Luis Rojas Marcos)
One way to explain the comfort zone.
13. Modern science has not yet produced a medicine as effective as a few kind words. (Sigmund Freud)
There are times when the medicine we need is a helping hand.
14. People are not evil, they are unfortunate. (Abraham Maslow)
Many people have great unhappiness inside, because of the opportunities they never had.
15. In life sometimes you win, other times you learn. (John Maxwell)
We can take a lesson with us at any time.
16. Our mind is so equipped, fortunately, that it leads us to the most important bases for our thoughts without us having the slightest knowledge of this elaboration work. (Wilhelm Wundt)
Everything we need is in our mind.
17. Choose a route, not a routine. (L. Martin)
A path that takes you where you want to go.
18. The ultimate solutions to problems are rational; the process of finding them is not. (Joy Paul Guilford)
We are not always able to keep a cool mind when looking for a solution.
19. Secrecy, censorship, dishonesty, and blocking of communication threaten all basic needs. (Abraham Maslow)
Closing our channels of expression makes us feel imprisoned.
20. There is a lot of randomness in the decisions that are made by people. (Daniel Kahneman)
No one can have complete control of the things that happen in their life.
21. The most dangerous words are “never”, “everything”, “nothing” and “always”. And it’s because they never leave options. (Walter Riso)
Extremes are always harmful, because they do not allow you to be flexible.
22. Most social acts must be understood in their context, since they lose meaning if they are isolated. (Solomon Asch)
Society’s problems come from a set of various wounds that accumulate.
23. Money doesn’t buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery. (Daniel Kahneman)
Money is necessary to have a good quality of life.
24. Our fears do not stop death, but life. (Elisabeth Kübler Ross)
Living in fear prevents us from living.
25. Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with other people’s darkness. (Carl Jung)
When we accept our problems, we are more empathetic to the things that happen in the lives of others.
26. The mind does not dominate the body, but becomes the body. Body and mind are one thing. (Candace Pert)
We cannot see the mind and body as two separate things.
27. If your only tool is a hammer, you tend to treat every problem as if it were a nail. (Abraham Maslow)
When you only see things negatively, you will want to resolve things aggressively.
28. Often, in our emotional life, we have a tendency to want to repair family situations from the past, in which we have found ourselves powerless. (Fina Sanz)
We think that fixing what is broken will give us relief.
29. People who are aware of their prejudices are on the way to eliminating them. (Gordon Allport)
You can’t improve if you don’t see what you need to improve.
30. People’s beliefs in their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities. (Albert Bandura)
The greatest factor for success is the belief that we can do it.
31. Being empathetic is seeing the world through the eyes of another and not seeing our world reflected in their eyes. (Carl Rogers)
It is listening without judging and without using ourselves as an example in other people’s situations.
32. Poison is poison even if it comes in golden pills. (Erich Fromm)
Never accept bad treatment, even if it comes from people close to you.
33. Success requires persistence, the ability to not give up in the face of failure. I believe that the optimistic style is the key to persistence. (Martin Seligman)
Consistency and hope is what leads us to success.
34. There are three phrases that prevent us from moving forward: I have to do it well, you have to treat me well and the world must be easy. (Albert Ellis)
Remember that you don’t owe anyone anything, but the world doesn’t owe you anything either.
35. I am convinced that an important stage of human thought will have been reached when the physiological and the psychological, the objective and the subjective, are truly united. (Ivan Pavlov)
We are reality and fantasy, creativity and objectivity, we cannot exist without both.
36. It is easier to act with a new way of feeling than to feel yourself with a new way of acting. (Harry Stack Sullivan)
Managing emotions leads us to focus on more effective solutions.
37. Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you think about it. (Daniel Kahneman)
Things only grow when we focus too much on them.
38. People see violence as moral, not immoral: around the world and throughout history, more people have been killed more to dispense justice than to satisfy greed. (Steven Pinker)
When crime becomes part of personal justice.
39. The truth is hidden in the feelings of people who feel oppressed and are not able to express themselves. (Wilhelm Reich)
The truth is the most precious gift to those who are silenced.
40. There is a negative correlation between recovery and psychological therapy: the more psychological therapy, the less the patient’s recovery (Hans Eysenck)
Therapies also need to be reinvented.
41. Women who seek to be equal to men lack ambition. (Timothy Leary)
People should aspire to be themselves, not someone else.
42. Thought is not expressed in words, but rather realizes itself through them. (Lev Vygotsky)
It is words that shape thoughts.
43. The danger of expecting nothing is that, in the end, it might be all we get. (Dan Ariely)
A warning about not having a plan to follow in the future.
44. What one can become, one must be (Abraham Maslow)
Don’t be afraid to dream and even less to take actions for that dream.
45. Love is a micro moment of warmth that you share with other living beings. (Barbara L. Fredrickson)
It is a space where we can feel confident.
46. People need each other. The sooner we learn it, the better. (Erik Erikson)
We are social beings, even if we are comfortable with society, we always need a friend.
47. You have more value than you yourself believe. (Dale Carnegie)
We are much more than we think we are.
48. Psychology cannot tell people how they should live their lives. However, it can provide them with meaning for effective personal and social change. (Albert Bandura)
Everyone decides how to live their life, but sometimes they need a guide to find the way.
49. Men are built, not born. (John B. Watson)
Our past does not determine what we can become in the future.
50. Even when it is not completely achievable, we become better by trying to pursue a higher goal. (Viktor Frankl)
Big goals are achieved with small objectives that bring us closer to them.
51. From our vulnerabilities come our strengths. (Sigmund Freud)
By overcoming an obstacle, we acquire a valuable new skill.
52. Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who bother don’t matter and those who matter won’t bother. (Fritz Perls)
Great advice about focusing on ourselves and not what others want.
53. I am not what happened to me. I am what I chose to be. (Carl Jung)
The things that happened to us should not determine what awaits us in life.
54. Love is giving what you don’t have to someone who doesn’t exist. (Jacques Lacan)
Love is share.
55. Do not become a simple recorder of facts; tries to penetrate the mystery of its origins. (Ivan Pablov)
Find out beyond the things they superficially teach you.
56. Only one’s own personal experience makes a man wise. (Sigmund Freud)
Only if we are able to learn from our experiences.
57. Love received and love given constitute the best form of therapy. (Gordon W. Allport)
Love helps us heal.
58. Fear is a suffering caused by the expectation of evil. (Sigmund Freud)
It is a way of negatively anticipating what we do not know.
59. Unexpressed emotions never die. They are buried alive and come out later in worse forms. (Sigmund Freud)
The emotions that we do not let out explode within us.
60. Psychology, unlike chemistry, algebra or literature, is a manual for your own mind. It is a guide for life. (Daniel Goldstein)
It is the place where we find the answers we need.
61. Worry should lead us to action, not depression. (Karen Horney)
The problem is that we are not able to handle worry correctly.
62. He who is happy also makes others happy. (Anna Freud)
Happiness is shared.
63. A successful individual usually sets his next goal a little, but not too much, above his last achievement. (Kurt Lewin)
The key is to continue growing in what we love to do.
64. Never think you know everything. (Ivan Pavlov)
At all times there is something new to learn.
65. I believe that one of the greatest sources of international conflict and human misery ultimately lies in our prevailing subjectivity. (Clark Hull)
The danger of subjectivity is that everyone gets offended when things are not as they believe.
66. Remember: everything is learned by trial and error. (Walter Riso)
Nothing turns out right on the first try, we need to fall to emerge.
67. Find the joy within yourself and the pain will go away. (Joseph Campbell)
The only way to overcome something is to heal within.
68. Love and happiness are to people, what water and the sun are to plants. (Jonathan Haidt)
People need positivity to move forward.
69. An intuition is neither a whim nor a kind of sixth sense, but a form of unconscious intelligence (Gerd Gigerenzer)
That is why we must listen to our instincts.
70. Where does a thought go when it is forgotten? (Sigmund Freud)
Do you think thoughts accumulate somewhere?
71. Evolution is an indispensable component of any explanation of our psychology. (Steven Pinker)
Nothing can stop evolution.
72. Solutions require thinking about a series of interrelated steps or stages, analyzing a series of rules at each point and always taking into account the conclusions reached in previous points. (Harold Kelley)
The process to get a good solution.
73. The greater the feeling of inferiority that a person has experienced, the more powerful is the impulse to conquest and the more violent is the emotional turmoil. (Alfred Adler)
The more oppressed someone feels, the more rebellious feelings awaken within them.
74. Underneath every psychic illness there is a social conflict. (Franco Basaglia)
Society influences people’s mental health.
75. A man with conviction is a difficult man to change. Tell him you don’t agree and he leaves. (Leon Festinger)
People with firm beliefs hardly change.
76. Immature love says: I love you because I need you. Mature love says: I need you because I love you. (Erich Fromm)
Not all the love that is shown is full of commitment.
77. The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well. (Alfred Adler)
All people are special because they have something that distinguishes them from the rest.
78. If you believe that you cause good things, you tend to like yourself more than if you believe that good things come from other people. (Martin Seligman)
When we see that we are capable of doing things that bring happiness, our perception changes.
79. Schizophrenia is only understood when despair is understood. (Ronald Laing)
One of the most challenging diseases in psychology.
80. It seems proven that success in life is achieved thanks to three factors: health, intelligence and character, let’s add a fourth factor; a bit of luck. (Alfred Binet)
We get ahead when we have the courage to keep trying.
81. There is no reason why a man cannot be taught to think. (B.F. Skinner)
Knowledge must be our greatest asset.
82. When we must make a choice and we do not make it, this is already a choice. (William James)
Decisions are all those that we carry out and those that we do not.
83. Follow your heart but take your brain with you. (Alfred Adler)
It’s never wrong to pursue your passions, but do so with discretion.
84. We can ignore these differences and assume that all our minds are the same. Or we can take the differences between them. (Howard Gardner)
We are all different, because we are individual people.
85. If we don’t believe in freedom of speech for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all. (Noam Chomsky)
Everyone has the right to express their opinions, even if they are not the same as ours.
86. The disappearance of the sense of responsibility is the greatest consequence of submission to authority. (Stanley Milgram)
A criticism of the loss of responsibility.
87. When I look at the world I am a pessimist, but when I look at people I am an optimist. (Carl Rogers)
People have the capacity to do great good in the world.
88. Weak wills are translated into speeches; the strong, in acts (Gustave Le Bon)
It’s no use promising if you don’t keep it.
89. You are what you do, not what you say you will do (Carl Jung)
It is your actions that speak for you.
90. Creativity requires having the courage to let go of certainties. (Erich Fromm)
It is finding the way to solutions that are not rigid.
91. The strongest person is not the one who is making most of the noise, he is the only one who can direct the silent conversation towards defining and resolving problems. (Aaron Beck)
Strong people are those who focus on healing their interior.
92. The only thing that is certain is that anyone can improve their well-being. (Carl Rogers)
We can all improve and it is never too late to do so.
93. Time does not cure everything, but it does displace the incurable from the center of attention. (L. Martin)
When we face our problems, we make them lose the importance we give them.
94. Scientific thinking, then, is not momentary, it is not a static instance, but it is a process. (Jean Piaget)
The process is what guarantees different results, no matter what they are.
95. Intelligence can be taken as a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of moral advancement. (Lawrence Kohlberg)
Intelligence should not be superior to humanity.
96. People who believe in absurdities will commit atrocities. (Hans Eysenck)
Many crimes are committed because of having a closed mind.
97. Give yourself a chance. (Aaron Beck)
Whatever it is, starting is the first step to overcoming fear.
98. The message you send is not always the one that is received. (Virgin Satir)
That is why we must build a strong self-esteem, so that we do not care about other people’s opinions.
99. I am not in this life to meet other people’s expectations, nor do I feel that the world should meet mine. (Fritz Perls)
Just as you must take ownership of your future, you must understand that the world owes you nothing.
100. The world is in a deep crisis because we do not have education for conscience. (Claudio Naranjo)
Leaving aside mental well-being makes people more miserable without understanding why.
