Edward Thorndike Quotes

32 quotes in 431 categories

• Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure.
• All that exists, exists in some amount and can be measured.
• Nowhere more truly than in his mental capacities is man a part of nature.
• Psychology is the science of the intellects, characters and behavior of animals including man.
• On the whole, the psychological work of the last quarter of the nineteenth century emphasized the study of consciousness to the neglect of the total…
• Some statements concern the conscious states of the animal, what he is to himself as an inner life; others concern his original and acquired ways…
• It will of course, be understood that directly or indirectly, soon or late, every advance in the sciences of human nature will contribute to our…
• The dog, on the other hand, has few or no ideas because his brain acts in coarse fashion and because there are few connections with…
• When, instead of merely associating some act with some situation in the animal way, we think the situation out, we have a set of particular…
• From the lowest animals of which we can affirm intelligence up to man this type of intellect is found.
• The un-conscious distortion of the facts is almost harmless compared to the unconscious neglect of an animal's mental life until it verges on the unusual…
• The restriction of studies of human intellect and character to studies of conscious states was not without influence on a scientific studies of animal psychology.
• To the intelligent man with an interest in human nature it must often appear strange that so much of the energy of the scientific world…
• He who learns and runs away, lives to learn another day.
• The function of intellect is to provide a means of modifying our reactions to the circumstances of life, so that we may secure pleasure, the…
• Psychology helps to measure the probability that an aim is attainable.
• Human beings are accustomed to think of intellect as the power of having and controlling ideas and of ability to learn as synonymous with ability…
• Just as the science and art of agriculture depend upon chemistry and botany, so the art of education depends upon physiology and psychology.
• Dogs get lost hundreds of times and no one ever notices it or sends an account of it to a scientific magazine.
• Human folk are as a matter of fact eager to find intelligence in animals.

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