But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system.
GORDON ALLPORTBut there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system.
GORDON ALLPORTThere is a story of an Oxford student who once remarked, “I despise all Americans, but have never met one I didn’t like.”
GORDON ALLPORTSince we think about ourselves so much of the time, it is comforting to assume … that we really know the score…. [But] this is not an easy assignment.
GORDON ALLPORTIf there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is.
GORDON ALLPORTThe dog [in Pavlov’s experiments] does not continue to salivate whenever it hears a bell unless sometimes at least an edible offering accompanies the bell.
GORDON ALLPORTLife is too short so we must generalize.
GORDON ALLPORTPersonality is and does something…It is what lies behind specific acts and within the individual
GORDON ALLPORTWe cannot know the young child’s personality by studying his systems of interest, for his attention is as yet too labile, his reactions impulsive, and interests unformed.
GORDON ALLPORTIt is not that we have class prejudice, but only that we find comfort and ease in our own class. And normally there are plenty of people of our own class, or race, or religion to play, live, and eat with, and to marry.
GORDON ALLPORTA new experience must be redacted into old categories. We cannot handle each event freshly in its own right. If we did so, of what use would past experience be?
GORDON ALLPORTThe specific goals we set for ourselves are almost always subsidiary to our long range intentions.
GORDON ALLPORTAn experience associated only once with a bereavement, an accident, or a battle, may become the center of a permanent phobia or complex, not in the least dependent on a recurrence of the original shock.
GORDON ALLPORTPrejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge.
GORDON ALLPORTThe outlines of the needed psychology of becoming can be discovered by looking within ourselves; for it is knowledge of our own uniqueness that supplies the first, and probably the best, hints for acquiring orderly knowledge of others.
GORDON ALLPORTThwarted lives have the most character-conditioned hate
GORDON ALLPORTPrejudgments become prejudices only if they are reversible when exposed to new knowledge.
GORDON ALLPORT