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So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter.

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. From adolescence onward, however, the surest clue to personality is the hierarchy of interests, including the loves and loyalties of adult life.

From Gordon W. Allport

Open-mindedness is considered to be a virtue. But, strictly speaking, it cannot occur. A 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?

From Gordon W. Allport

What is familiar tends to become a value.

From Gordon W. Allport

To a considerable degree, all minority groups suffer from the same state of marginality with its haunting consequences of insecurity, conflict, and irritation.

From Gordon W. Allport

Each person is an idiom unto himself, an apparent violation of the syntax of the species.

From Gordon W. Allport

Self-love, it is obvious, remains always positive and active in our natures.

From Gordon W. Allport

The surest way to lose truth is to pretend that one already wholly possesses it.

From Gordon W. Allport

Personality is less a finished product than a transitive process. While it has some stable features, it is at the same time continually undergoing change.

From Gordon W. Allport

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.

From Gordon W. Allport

Gordon W. Allport

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