Top 20 Quotes & Sayings by Boris Sidis

Not purpose but chance is at the heart of mental life.

The general tendency of evolution is from structure to function, from bondage to freedom of the individual elements.

The fact that psychology postulates an external material world and studies it in so far as it comes to be reflected in consciousness, points to another postulate which psychology must assume in addition, namely, the existence of an inner world consciousness.

The recognition, the diagnosis, and the preservation of psychopathic individuals account for the apparent increase of neurotics in civilized communities.

Mental synthesis of psychic content in the unity of a moment-consciousness is a fundamental principle of psychology.

The main source of psychopathic diseases is the fundamental instinct of fear with its manifestations, the feeling of anxiety, anguish, and worry.

Psychology is the science of psychic states both as to content and form, regarded from an objective standpoint, and brought in relation to the living corporeal individual.

Human institutions depend for their existence and stability on the impulse of self-preservation and its close associate, - the fear instinct.

Self-preservation is the central aim of all life-activities.

The tendency of life is not the preservation of the species, but solely the preservation of each individual organism, as long as it is in existence at all, and is able to carry on its life processes.

The psycho-physiological hypothesis is both inductively and deductively the sine qua non of the science of psychology.

Science is the description of phenomena and the formulation of their relations.

Social laughter is momentary, soon burns itself out and passes away like the fire and smokes of straw, but genius shakes the very skies with its lasting, inextinguishable laughter.

If society is to progress on a truly humanistic basis, without being subject to mental epidemics and virulent social diseases to which the subconscious falls an easy victim, the personal consciousness of every individual should be cultivated to the highest degree possible.

Suggestibility varies as the amount of disaggregation, and inversely as the unification of consciousness.

Psychology must postulate uniformity of interrelation of physical, physiological, and psychic processes.

The course of evolution is to a greater integration of similarly functioning ganglia.

Superstitions, and especially the early cultivation of religion, with its "fear of the Lord" and of unknown mysterious agencies, are especially potent in the development of the instinct of fear. Even the early cultivation of morality and conscientiousness, with their fears of right and wrong, often causes psychoneurotic states in later life. Religious, social, and moral taboos and superstitions, associated with apprehension of threatening impending evil, based on the fear instinct, form the germs of psychopathic affections.

The principle of recognition of evil under all its guises is at the basis of the true education of man.

The man of genius whether as artist or thinker requires a mass of accidental variations to select from and a rigidly selective process of attention.