QuotesCosmos
p. 81
“

Man is usually not content simply to register the observables that surround him; he needs to refer them as far as possible to the invariances of his environment.. The underlying causes of events, especially the motives of other persons, are the invariances of the environment that are relevant to him; they give meaning to what he experiences and it is these meanings that are recorded in his life space and are precipitated as the reality of the environment to which he then reacts.

— Fritz Heider

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Man is usually not content simply to register the observables that surround him; he needs to refer them as far as possible to the invariances of his environment.. The underlying causes of events, especially the motives of other persons, are the invariances of the environment that are relevant to him; they give meaning to what he experiences and it is these meanings that are recorded in his life space and are precipitated as the reality of the environment to which he then reacts." in the context of "p. 81" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Fritz Heider" (Quotes, The psychology of interpersonal relations, 1958: Fritz Heider (1958), The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

Tags

#Fritz Heider#environment#invariances#precipitated#observables#experiences#underlying#especially#register#surround#possible#relevant

About Fritz Heider

Fritz Heider (February 19, 1896 – January 2, 1988) was an Austrian psychologist whose work was related to the Gestalt school. In 1958 he published The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations, which expanded upon his creations of balance theory and attribution theory.