Boris Sidis Quotes

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

— 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

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— 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 it is in existence at all, and is able to carry on its life processes.”

— Boris Sidis

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

— 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

“If society is to progress on a truly humanistic basis, without being subject to mental epidemics and virulent social diseases to which the subconscious falls an easy victim, the personal consciousness of every individual should be cultivated to the highest degree possible.”

— Boris Sidis

Social laughter is momentary, soon burns itself out and passes away like the fire and smokes of straw, but genius shakes the very skies with its lasting, inextinguishable laughter.

— Boris Sidis

“The fact that psychology postulates an external material world and studies it in so far as it comes to be reflected in consciousness, points to another postulate which psychology must assume in addition, namely, the existence of an inner world consciousness.”

— Boris Sidis

“The man of genius whether as artist or thinker requires a mass of accidental variations to select from and a rigidly selective process of attention.”

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

“Psychology is the science of psychic states both as to content and form, regarded from an objective standpoint, and brought in relation to the living corporeal individual.”

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— Boris Sidis

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

— 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

“Superstitions, and especially the early cultivation of religion, with its "fear of the Lord" and of unknown mysterious agencies, are especially potent in the development of the instinct of fear. Even the early cultivation of morality and conscientiousness, with their fears of right and wrong, often causes psychoneurotic states in later life. Religious, social, and moral taboos and superstitions, associated with apprehension of threatening impending evil, based on the fear instinct, form the germs of psychopathic affections.”

— Boris Sidis