Ebbinghaus Quotes & Sayings

I wondered why people consider escapism so bad, even the escapism on display right then. At first it might appear unseemly, but in the end its lack of pretension gives it its own sort of beauty. — Saadat Hasan Manto

The aim of the tests carried on with these syllable series was, by means of repeated audible perusal of the separate series, to so impress them that immediately afterward they could voluntarily be reproduced. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

Technically, 'Kukla, Fran and Ollie' was a kids' show, but adults watched almost religiously - and we're talking adult adults, celebrated adults - including James Thurber, Orson Welles, John Steinbeck, Adlai E. Stevenson and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. — Tom Shales

Mental states of every kind, - sensations, feelings, ideas, - which were at one time present in consciousness and then have disappeared from it, have not with their disappearance absolutely ceased to exist. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

The relation of repetitions for learning and for repeating English stanzas needs no amplification. These were learned by heart on the first day with less than half of the repetitions necessary for the shortest of the syllable series. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

Meanwhile the fact that the connection with the activity of memory in ordinary life is for the moment lost is of less importance than the reverse, namely, that this connection with the complications and fluctuations of life is necessarily still a too close one. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

I've never been too afraid of what other people have said, especially when I was younger, but I suppose that was the arrogance of youth. — Francesca Annis

What is true [in psychology] is alas not new, the new not true. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

One needs but to say that, in the case of an unfamiliar sequence of syllables, only about seven can be grasped in one act, but that with frequent repetition and gradually increasing familiarity with the series this capacity of consciousness may be increased. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

Imagine a group of people all staring at writing on a wall, everyone congratulating one another on reading the words correctly. But behind that group is a mirror whose image shows the writing's true message. No one looks at the mirror. No one thinks it's necessary. — Anonymous

Series of syllables which have been learned by heart, forgotten, and learned anew must be similar as to their inner conditions at the times when they can be recited. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

On the basis of the familiar experience that that which is learned with difficulty is better retained, it would have been safe to prophesy such an effect from the greater number of repetitions. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

No matter how thoroughly a person may have learned the Greek alphabet, he will never be in a condition to repeat it backwards without further training. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

Mental events, it is said, are not passive happenings but the acts of a subject. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

it seemed a great wonder that the world, which was so large, could sometimes feel so small and empty. — Norton Juster

For the longest time, Indian women have been okay with being curvy. But I think the modern Indian woman needs to get toned. I don't endorse being thin. Anorexia and bulimia are a reality in India because everybody wants to be thin. — Bipasha Basu

Out of the simple consonants of the alphabet and our eleven vowels and diphthongs all possible syllables of a certain sort were constructed, a vowel sound being placed between two consonants. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

The school-boy doesn't force himself to learn his vocabularies and rules altogether at night, but knows that be must impress them again in the morning. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

The musician writes for the orchestra what his inner voice sings to him; the painter rarely relies without disadvantage solely upon the images which his inner eye presents to him; nature gives him his forms, study governs his combinations of them. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

Ideas which have been developed simultaneously or in immediate succession in the same mind mutually reproduce each other, and do this with greater ease in the direction of the original succession and with a certainty proportional to the frequency with which they were together. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

As he took another hit, a sense of loneliness consumed him, as if he were the only soul in the Five Boroughs and God was watching him, unimpressed. — David Matthew Olson

The wonderful fortune of some writers deludes and leads to misery a great number of young people. It cannot be too often repeated that it is dangerous to enter upon a career of letters without some other means of living. An illustrious author has said in these times, Literature must not be leant on as upon a crutch; it is little more than a stick. — Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

The constant flux and caprice of mental events do not admit of the establishment of stable experimental conditions. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

These syllables, about 2,300 in number, were mixed together and then drawn out by chance and used to construct series of different lengths, several of which each time formed the material for a test. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

A poem is learned by heart and then not again repeated. We will suppose that after a half year it has been forgotten: no effort of recollection is able to call it back again into consciousness. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

Sensorial perception, for example, certainly occurs with greater or less accuracy according to the degree of interest; it is constantly given other directions by the change of external stimuli and by ideas. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

Psychology has a long past, yet its real history is short. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

Psychology has a long past, but only a short history — Herman Ebbinghaus

Humans more easily remember or learn items when they are studied a few times over a long period of time (spaced presentation), rather than studied repeatedly in a short period of time. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

The amount of detailed information which an individual has at his command and his theoretical elaborations of the same are mutually dependent; they grow in and through each other. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

Often, even after years, mental states once present in consciousness return to it with apparent spontaneity and without any act of the will; that is, they are reproduced involuntarily. — Hermann Ebbinghaus