Jean Piaget
Pioneer of developmental psychology
Most quoted
"The child who defines a lie as 'a naughty word' knows perfectly well that lying consists of not speaking the truth. He is not, therefore, mistaking one thing for another; he is simply identifying them one with another by what seems to us a quaint extension of the word lie."
— from The Moral Judgment of the Child, 1932
"The more the schemata are differentiated, the smaller the gap between the new and the familiar becomes, so that novelty, instead of constituting an annoyance avoided by the subject, becomes a problem and invites searching."
— from The Origins of Intelligence in Children, 1936
"Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an object, to know an event, is not simply to look at it and record it in a mental image or even to make a perceptual copy of it. To know an object is to act on it."
— from Speech at UNESCO, 'Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child', 1964
All quotes by Jean Piaget (326)
The human being is a self-organizing system, constantly striving for equilibrium.
The meaning of life is to be found in the continuous process of adaptation and creation.
The child's play is not just fun, but a serious business of learning and development.
Truth is not absolute, but relative to the stage of cognitive development.
The beauty of the world lies in its complexity and its potential for discovery.
The human mind is a dynamic system, constantly interacting with its environment.
The purpose of education is to help children develop their own understanding of the world.
The child's questions are often more revealing than their answers.
The process of knowing is an active construction, not a passive reception.
The human condition is characterized by a continuous striving for meaning and understanding.
Death, for the child, is often a temporary or reversible state, not a finality.
The spiritual dimension of life emerges from our capacity for abstract thought and moral reasoning.
Meaning is not inherent in the world, but is created through our interactions with it.
The search for truth is an ongoing process of questioning and re-evaluating our understanding.
The beauty of human development lies in its complexity and its potential for growth.
Consciousness is a product of the interaction between the organism and its environment.
Life is a continuous process of adaptation and organization.
The human spirit is characterized by its capacity for creativity and innovation.
The ultimate goal of education is to foster autonomous individuals capable of critical thinking.
The world is not simply there to be perceived, but to be acted upon and transformed.
Contemporaries of Jean Piaget
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of Jean Piaget (1896–1980).