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 brain is the most complex and delicate instrument in the world.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The secret of thinking is still hidden from us.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The dog is the best subject for the study of conditioned reflexes because of its highly developed nervous system and its tractable nature.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The salivary reflex is a simple, convenient, and accurate indicator of the processes taking place in the cerebral hemispheres.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The physiologist must be an experimenter, not an observer.

Attributed remark

The study of the higher nervous activity is the study of the most complex forms of adaptation of the organism to the environment.

Conditioned Reflexes 1927

The conditioned reflex is the fundamental unit of all acquired behavior.

Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes

The path of science is paved with discarded theories which were once declared to be self-evident.

Attributed remark