| When psychological scientists speak to or write for general audiences, they should take the opportunity to model the key themes of scientific and critical thinking: that what we know is inseparable from how we know it; that opinions must be based on evidence; that not all opinions have equal validity; and that science gives us probabilities - only pseudoscience gives us certainties. | |
| - Carol Tavris, Social Psychologist. In APS Observer (2001) | |
| Of course Behaviorism "works." So does torture. Give me a no-nosense, down-to-earth behaviourist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian creed in public. | |
| - W. H. Auden (1907-1973). English poet. A Certain World: A Commonplace Book (1970) | |
| Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won't do. It's an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth century thought. | |
| - Peter Medawar, New Zealand-born British immunologist and zoologist. The Hope of Progress (1972) | |
| If X is an interesting or socially significant aspect of memory, then psychologists have hardly ever studied X. | |
| - Ulric Neisser, Cognitive Psychologist. In Practical Aspects of Memory (1978) | |
| Memory is the quintessence of human experience without which we cannot make progress, cannot learn from experience, and cannot develop a personal identity. | |
| - David Chamberlain | |
| In the last analysis, I believe that the academic business is not just a profession or trade; it comes down to being a calling. The calling is to perpetuate knowledge, and add to it, and hold it dear, and transmit it to others. | |
| From the text of a speech by Henry Gleitman at the 1983 meeting of the APA. | |
| The juvenile seasquirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it. It's rather like getting tenure. | |
| - Daniel C. Dennett, Professor. In Consciousness Explained (1991) | |
| Constant testing no more addresses the problems with education than constantly putting an overweight person on the scale cures obesity. | |
| - Anna Quindlen, In Newsweek, June 13, 2005. | |