Gordon W. Allport Quotes

“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.”

“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.”

“Given a thimbleful of [dramatic] facts we rush to make generalizations as large as a tub.”

“People it seems, are busy leading their lives into the future, whereas psychology, for the most part, is busy tracing them into the past.”

“Philosophically speaking, values are the termini of our intentions. We never fully achieve them.”

“To understand what a person is, it is necessary always to refer to what he may be in the future, for every state of the person is pointed in the direction of future possibilities.”

“Gordon Van Wylen, Chairman of the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan commented that, “The question that arises is how the universe got into the state of reduced entropy in the first place, since all natural processes known to us tend to increase entropy?” (Gordon Van Wylen and Richard Edwin Sonntag, Fundamentals of Classical Thermodynamics, 1973). He concludes by saying, “The author has found that the second law [of thermodynamics] tends to increase conviction that there is a Creator.”

“There was something about him that drove the shyness out of you, a kind of understanding that went deeper than words and set up an instantaneous closeness. It was odd; we couldn’t have been more different. Arthur Gordon”

“If we are to build that Zion of which the prophets have spoken and of which the Lord has given mighty promise, we must set aside our consuming selfishness. We must rise above our love for comfort and ease, and in the very process of effort and struggle, even in our extremity, we shall become better acquainted with our God." — Gordon B. Hinckley”

“Rhythm. Life is full of it; words should have it, too. But you have to train your ear. Listen to the waves on a quiet night; you’ll pick up the cadence. Look at the patterns the wind makes in dry sand and you’ll see how syllables in a sentence should fall. Arthur Gordon”