Boris Sidis

Social laughter is momentary, soon burns itself out and passes away like the fire and smokes of straw, but genius shakes the…

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

The tendency of life is not the preservation of the species, but solely the preservation of each individual organism, as long as…

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

If society is to progress on a truly humanistic basis, without being subject to mental epidemics and virulent social diseases to which…

— Boris Sidis

Superstitions, and especially the early cultivation of religion, with its "fear of the Lord" and of unknown mysterious agencies, are especially potent…

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

The fact that psychology postulates an external material world and studies it in so far as it comes to be reflected in…

— Boris Sidis