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. ”

Dogmatism makes for scientific anemia. ”

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. ”

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. ”

The primary problem in the psychology of becoming is to account for the transformation by which the unsocialized infant becomes an adult with structured loves, hates, loyalties, and interests, capable of taking his place in a complexly ordered society. ”

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

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? ”

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

What is familiar tends to become a value. ”

As partisans of our own way of life, we cannot help thinking in a partisan manner. ”