Cattell Quotes & Sayings

Plato compared the intellect to a charioteer guiding the powerful horses of the passions, i.e., he gave it both the power of perception and the power of control. — Raymond Cattell

A taxonomy of abilities, like a taxonomy anywhere else in science, is apt to strike a certain type of impatient student as a gratuitous orgy of pedantry. Doubtless, compulsions to intellectual tidiness express themselves prematurely at times, and excessively at others, but a good descriptive taxonomy, as Darwin found in developing his theory, and as Newton found in the work of Kepler, is the mother of laws and theories. — Raymond Cattell

I heard Professor Cannon lecture last night, going partly on your account. His subject was a physiological substitute for war - which is international sports and I suppose motorcycle races - to encourage the secretion of the adrenal glands! — James McKeen Cattell

Intelligence is important in psychology for two reasons. First, it is one of the most scientifically developed corners of the subject, giving the student as complete a view as is possible anywhere of the way scientific method can be applied to psychological problems. Secondly, it is of immense practical importance, educationally, socially, and in regard to physiology and genetics. — Raymond Cattell

[I] browsed far outside science in my reading and attended public lectures - Bertrand Russell, H. G. Wells, Huxley, and Shaw being my favorite speakers. — Raymond Cattell

But psychology is a more tricky field, in which even outstanding authorities have been known to run in circles, 'describing things which everyone knows in language which no one understands'. — Raymond Cattell

The original Upper Paleolithic people would, if they appeared among us today, be called Caucasoid, in the sense that they lacked the particular traits we associate with Negroid and Mongoloid types. — Raymond Cattell