25 Lev Vygotsky Quotes by a Famous Psychologist

By Stephanie Kirby | Published August 5, 2023

Learn about “cultural-historical activity theory” with these Lev Vygotsky quotes.

Lev Vygotsky was born in 1896 in Orsha, Russia, which is now Belarus, and died in Moscow, Russia, in 1934 at the age of 37.

He was a psychologist specializing in children’s psychology, and he created the framework known as cultural-historical activity theory.

Vygotsky was homeschooled until the age of 15, and then he received a private education and was admitted to Moscow University.

He later married Roza Noevna Vygodskaia and began his career at the Psychological Institute.

During his career, he wrote multiple books and influenced how children’s psychology is viewed.

Take a look at these Lev Vygotsky Quotes to learn more about this talented psychologist.

Short Lev Vygotsky Quotes

Here are some popular quotes from the psychologist.

1. “Language is the tool of the tools.” — Lev Vygotsky

2. “Art is the collectivization of feeling.” — Lev Vygotsky

3. “A mind cannot be independent of culture.” — Lev Vygotsky

4. “Through others we become ourselves.” — Lev Vygotsky

5. “What a child can do in cooperation today, he can do alone tomorrow.” — Lev Vygotsky

6. “The teacher must adopt the role of facilitator, not content provider.” — Lev Vygotsky

7. “Thought is not merely expressed in words; it comes into existence through them.” — Lev Vygotsky

8. “Love can reach the same level of talent, and even genius, as the discovery of differential calculus.” — Lev Vygotsky

9. “By giving out students practice in talking with others, we give them frames for thinking on their own.” — Lev Vygotsky

10. “A word devoid of thought is a dead thing, and a thought unembodied in words remains a shadow.” — Lev Vygotsky

You will also enjoy our article on Marsha Linehan quotes.

Lev Vygotsky Quotes About Play and Learning

Vygotsky shared many thoughts about how people learn.

11. “A child’s greatest achievements are possible in play, achievements that tomorrow will become her basic level of real action.” — Lev Vygotsky

12. “Play continually creates demands on the child to act against immediate impulse, i.e., to act according to the line of greatest resistance.” — Lev Vygotsky

13. “In play, a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play, it is as though he were a head taller than himself.” — Lev Vygotsky

14. “Internal and external action are inseparable: imagination, interpretation, and will are internal processes in external action.” — Lev Vygotsky

15. “Human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them.” — Lev Vygotsky

16. “Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many specialized abilities for thinking about a variety of things.” — Lev Vygotsky

17. “The difference between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.” — Lev Vygotsky

More Lev Vygotsky Quotes

Here are a few more additional quotes sharing the knowledge and opinions of Vygotsky.

18. “Experience teaches us that thought does not express itself in words, but rather realizes itself in them.” — Lev Vygotsky

19. “But it is possible not only to be talented in one’s thoughts but also to be talented in one’s feelings as well.” — Lev Vygotsky

20. “The internalization of socially rooted historically developed activities is the distinguishing feature of human psychology.” — Lev Vygotsky

21. “The true direction of the development of thinking is not from the individual to the social, but from the social to the individual.” — Lev Vygotsky

22. “What children can do with the assistance of others might be in some sense even more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone.” — Lev Vygotsky

23. “… People with great passions, people who accomplish great deeds, people who possess strong feelings, even people with great minds and a strong personality, rarely come out of good little boys and girls.” — Lev Vygotsky

24. “It may be said that the basic characteristics of human behavior, in general, is that humans personally influence their relationship with the environment and through that environment personally change their behavior, subjugating it to their control.” — Lev Vygotsky

25. “Any human act that gives rise to something new is referred to as a creative act, regardless of whether what is created is a physical object or some mental or emotional construct that lives within the person who created it and is known only to him.” — Lev Vygotsky