Each person is an idiom unto himself, an apparent violation of the syntax of the species.
GORDON ALLPORTIt takes a major unhappiness, a prolonged and bitter experience, to drive us away from loyalties once formed.
More Gordon Allport Quotes
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Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are reversible when exposed to new knowledge.
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The 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.
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If a person is capable of rectifying his erroneous judgments in the light of new evidence he is not prejudiced.
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And sometimes no amount of punishment can make us repudiate our loyalty.
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If 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.
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[As] Santayana wrote, ‘Nothing requires a rarer intellectual heroism than willingness to see one’s equation written out.’
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Since 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.
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We 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.
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It takes a major unhappiness, a prolonged and bitter experience, to drive us away from loyalties once formed.
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But there are innumerable instances in human life where a single association, never reinforced, results in the establishment of a life-long dynamic system.
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The specific goals we set for ourselves are almost always subsidiary to our long range intentions.
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There is a story of an Oxford student who once remarked, “I despise all Americans, but have never met one I didn’t like.”
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Indeed the measure of our intellectual maturity, one philosopher suggests, is our capacity to feel less and less satisfied with our answers to better problems.
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The scientist, by the very nature of his commitment, creates more and more questions, never fewer.
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An 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.
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The 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.
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Reason adapts impulses and beliefs into the real world; rationalization, on the other hand, adapts the concept of reality to the impulses and beliefs of the individual.
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Many studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and “patriotism” . . .
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It 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.
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Life is too short so we must generalize.
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People who are aware of, and ashamed of, their prejudices are well on the road to eliminating them.
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Prejudgments become prejudices only if they are not reversible when exposed to new knowledge.
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Extreme bigots are almost always super-patriots.
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As partisans of our own way of life, we cannot help thinking in a partisan manner.
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Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities.
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From adolescence onward, however, the surest clue to personality is the hierarchy of interests, including the loves and loyalties of adult life.
GORDON ALLPORT