Ivan Pavlov

Psychology Russian 1849 – 1936 368 quotes

Discovered classical conditioning

Most quoted

"Thanks to our recent works, the physiology of the brain has been advanced to a new stage, and the study of the highest part of the nervous system, which is of such colossal importance to man, has been placed on a solid foundation of exact knowledge."

— from Nobel Lecture, 1904

"One can truly say that the irresistible progress of natural science since the time of Galileo has made its first halt before the study of the higher parts of the brain, the organ of the most complicated relations of the animal to the external world."

— from Scientific Study of the So-Called Psychical Processes in the Higher Animals, 1909

"The physiologist who succeeds in penetrating deeper and deeper into the digestive canal becomes convinced that it consists of a number of chemical laboratories equipped with various mechanical devices."

— from Nobel Lecture, 1904

All quotes by Ivan Pavlov (368)

The constant conditions of life produce constant habits.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The cerebral hemispheres are the organ of the animal's relations with the surrounding world.

Conditioned Reflexes 1927

The sound of a bell, the sight of a light, previously indifferent, now become signals for food and evoke a salivary secretion.

Conditioned Reflexes 1927

Gradualness, gradualness, and gradualness. From the very beginning of your work, school yourself to severe gradualness in the accumulation of knowledge.

Bequest to the Academic Youth of Soviet Russia

Remember that science demands your whole life. And even if you had two lives to give, they would not be enough.

Bequest to the Academic Youth of Soviet Russia

The digestive canal is a tube passing through the entire organism and communicating with the external world.

The Work of the Digestive Glands 1897

The organism is a machine which regulates itself.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The aim of reflexology is to study all the reflexes which can be established in the organism.

Conditioned Reflexes 1927

The salivary glands are a mirror of the cerebral hemispheres.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The physiologist must consider the organism as a whole, in its relations with the surrounding medium.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The conditioned reflex is a universal physiological phenomenon in the animal world, and in ourselves as well.

Conditioned Reflexes 1927

The activity of the cerebral hemispheres is based on the principle of the temporary connection.

Conditioned Reflexes 1927

The physiologist who would remain a physiologist must go on to the study of the highest nervous activity.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

Do not be misled by the apparent simplicity of the conditioned reflex method. It requires the greatest attention and precision.

Advice to colleagues

The higher nervous activity is a function of the cerebral cortex.

Conditioned Reflexes 1927

The animal is a system, a complex of innumerable reactions to external influences.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The physiologist must be a materialist in his method, but he need not be a materialist in his philosophy.

Attributed remark

The study of conditioned reflexes has thrown a bright light on the mechanism of the most complex relations of the animal to the external world.

Conditioned Reflexes 1927

The first duty of the physiologist is to establish the facts, and only then to philosophize about them.

Advice to colleagues

The conditioned reflex is a precise, objective, and measurable phenomenon.

Conditioned Reflexes 1927