The 45 best quotes by Lev Vygotsky

We compile several reflections that help us to understand the thought of the Russian psychologist.

Lev Vygotsky is one of the most important figures in educational and developmental psychology..

His ideas, reflected in his "sociocultural theory", focus on how people are active learners, how the most expert individuals can provide us with valuable help so that we end up building our own learning and how language is a basic tool that allows the transmission of knowledge.

• You can go deeper into the ideas of this character in our post: "The Sociocultural Theory of Lev Vygotsky".

Vygotsky's best quotes

Vygotsky is also known for the debate that his theory has provoked with respect to that of another psychologist who was interested in the cognitive development of children: Jean Piaget. There are several differences in the contributions of the two authors.

However, both Vygotsky and Piaget have provided valuable information for this area of psychology. This demonstrates the complexity of cognitive development.

Since Vygotsky has pronounced very valuable quotes for psychology, in this article you will find his 45 best quotes. Let's start.

1. Psychology falls into a blind alley when it analyzes verbal thought in its components, thought and word, and studies them in isolation

Vygotsky explains that dialogue is an important psychological tool in the development of a child's thinking. Children grow and develop, and as this happens their basic language becomes more complex..

2. The teacher must adopt the role of facilitator, not content provider.

The student is the one who must construct the learning, the teacher only accompanies him along the way.

3. The defect alone does not decide the destiny of the personality, but the social consequences and its socio-psychological realization. From the perspective of the future, pedagogy is an immense source of possibilities in the formation of man and his future.

Unlike Piaget, who considers that learning occurs individually. Vygotsky thinks that learning takes place thanks to social interactionswith the support of someone more expert.

4. Experience teaches us that thought is not expressed in words, but rather gives an account of itself through words.

Language is essential for thought, Vygotsky believes.. Children's cognitive development happens through informal and formal conversations with adults.

5. The brain is not only an organ capable of conserving or reproducing our past experiences, but it is also a combining, creative organ, capable of reworking and creating new norms and approaches with elements of past experiences.

Both Piaget and Vygotsky think that we are active learners, not passive.

6. There is no better learning than that of one's own experience.

Experiential learning is undoubtedly one of the most powerful forms of learning.

7. Human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children gain access to the intellectual life of those around them.

Vygotsky's theory focuses on how social interaction influences learning.

8. Culture is adapted to the typical, normal man, to his constitution; the atypical development conditioned by the defect cannot take root in culture in a different and indirect way as it takes place in the normal child.

A phrase by Lev Vygotsky that invites deep reflection.

9. A thought can be compared to a cloud that casts a rain of words.

The relationship between language and thought is clear, Vygotsky states. Language is key in human development, as it enables the exchange of knowledge.

10. Knowledge that does not come from experience is not really knowledge.

Experience is key to our learning and is necessary for people's cognitive development.

11. To understand the language of others it is not enough to understand their words; it is necessary to understand their thinking.

Vygotsky, thought and language are intimately related. Learning occurs in a communicative and social environment.

12. Modern psychology -in general- and child psychology -in particular- reveal a propensity to combine psychological and philosophical problems.

A reflection of Vygotsky on what psychology is.

13. People with intense passions, who achieve great feats, who possess strong feelings, brilliant minds, and a strong personality, seldom emerge from good boys and girls

Brilliant minds defy social impositions.

14. Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of numerous skills to think about a wide variety of things

Language greatly enhances our cognitive development. Complex mental activities have their origin in basic social activities.

15. Our parents pass on what previous generations have discovered.

Our parents are facilitators of our learning and transmit knowledge to us.We are not only learning from our parents, because cognitive development is based on social interactions, with the support of someone more knowledgeable.

16. Realized behavior is an insignificant part of possible behavior. Man, at every moment, is full of unrealized possibilities.

Culture sets limits to our actions and thoughts.

17. If we give students the possibility to talk to others, we give them frameworks to think for themselves.

Vygotsky has always been a strong advocate of collaborative learning and worked for more on the influence of the sociocultural environment on cognitive development.

18. A word devoid of thought is a dead thing, and a thought put into words is but a shadow.

A phrase with a certain ironic touch about thought and language.

19. What a child can do today with help, he will be able to do on his own tomorrow.

Regarding collaboration with someone more expert. Vygotsky, in clear relation to adults facilitating children's learning.

20. By ignoring the problem of consciousness, psychology closes itself off from the study of the complex problems of human behavior. It is forced to limit itself to clarifying only the most elementary links between the living being and the world.

In order to be able to solve the problems, it is necessary to observe them in their totality.

21. When the psychological nature is not correctly understood, it is not possible to clarify in any way the relations of thought with the word in all their real complexity.

Like the previous sentence, in order to solve a problem one must be objective.

22. The problem of the psychological nature of consciousness is constantly and intentionally eluded in our psychology. Everyone tries not to see it, as if it did not exist for the new psychology.

A thought-provoking quote about psychology.

23. Learning is like a tower, you have to build it step by step.

Lev Vygotsky, this quote expresses his concept of scaffolding.

24. Theories are born from problems

Difficulties make us mobilize and test our intelligence, they are moments of growth.

25. A need can only be truly satisfied through a certain adaptation to reality.

Culture largely determines our needs.

26. The true direction of the development of thought is not from the individual to the social, but from the social to the individual.

In contrast to Piaget, Vygotsky will be remembered for his contribution to the social view of learning.

27. The most admirable thing is that language consciousness and social experience emerge contemporaneously and absolutely parallel to each other.

The construction of language and social experience are intimately related.

28. Speech and action are part of the same complex psychological function, which is directed toward the solution of the problem in question

Dialogue is an important psychological tool in problem solving.

29. Educational agents can facilitate learning, but the learner must construct it.

Vygotsky making reference to the potential of the zone of proximal development. Educational agents are facilitators of knowledge that help us in cognitive development. Vygotsky is one of the greatest exponents of social constructionism.

30. Through others we become ourselves

Vygotsky states that individuals learn through social interactions and that collaborative learning is a necessary tool for cognitive development.

31. Language is the tool of tools

One of Vygotsky's slogans about psychological development.

32. The mind cannot be independent of a culture

People do not exist as isolated individuals

33. The child begins to perceive the world not only through his eyes, but also through his speech.

Language makes it possible to create a worldview.

34. Pedagogy should be oriented not towards yesterday, but towards tomorrow's development of the child.

Pedagogy understood as a vector of development.

35. What occurs between subjects and objects?

A reflection on the way in which human beings become agents, that is to say, become conscious of their intentions.

36. To understand the higher functions of behavior we must discover the means by which human beings learn to organize and direct their behavior.

Vygotsky distinguishes between higher and basic psychological processes.

37. We instruct ourselves in the same way we instruct others; through the use of the word as a tool.

A reflection on learning.

38. We become ourselves through others.

We are shaped by our environment.

39. The structure of speech is not a simple reflection of the structure of thought, because words cannot be put on by thought like tailor-made garments.

One of Vygotsky's reflections on the relationship between language and thought.

40. The history of the development of signs leads us to a much more general law governing the development of behavior.

Transformation through language is one of the plots of mental development.

41. Learning to direct one's own mental processes with the help of words and signs is an integral part of the process of concept formation.

Concepts appear by developing with each other.

42. Experience tells us that thought is not expressed through words but is gestated in them.

Thought is not something entirely separate from language.

Everything that is known about psychic development indicates that its essence lies in the change of the inter-functional nature of consciousness.

The development of psychological functions involves many different processes.

44. Behind the words is the grammar of thought, the syntax of meaning.

The interesting thing about language is what lies beyond the words, for that is what gives them meaning.

45. The interesting thing about the human mind is the way in which it transforms and yet remains stable.

There is a balance between what changes and what remains stable.