Behavior Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

It has been said, and only half in jest, that a tough, professionally led union is a great force for improving management performance. It forces the manager to think about what he is doing and to be able to explain his actions and behavior.

The men who espoused unpopular causes may have been considered misguided, but they were rarely attacked for their morals or their masculinity. Women who did the same thing were apt to be denounced as harlots or condemned for being unfeminine — an all-purpose word that was used to describe almost any category of female behavior of which men disapproved.

Margaret Truman

I knew there was never anyone to blame when people get into drugs. They're always responsible for their own behavior, and it's not the dealer, it's not the friend, it's not the bad influence, it's not the childhood.

However useful it is for pedagogical purposes, the biological metaphor of style as a sequence of life-stages was historically misleading, for it bestowed upon the flux of events the shapes and behavior of organisms.

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true. The specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.

Robert K. Merton

All human behavior, all human motivations, all man's hopes and fears, were heavily colored and largely controlled by mankind's tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction.

Robert A. Heinlein

personally my ambition is to get my time as a cockroach shortened for good behavior and be promoted to a revenue officer it is not much of a step up but i am humble

Our society tends to regard as a sickness any mode of thought or behavior that is inconvenient for the system and this is plausible because when an individual doesn't fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a cure for a sickness and therefore as good.

Theodore Kaczynski

For any given system, the environment is the set of all objects whose behaviour is influenced by the behaviour of the primary system, and those objects whose behaviour influences the behavior of the primary system.

Genes make enzymes, and enzymes control the rates of chemical processes. Genes do not make novelty seeking or any other complex and overt behavior. Predisposition via a long chain of complex chemical reactions, mediated through a more complex series of life's circumstances, does not equal identification or even causation.

Stephen Jay Gould

Etiquette enables you to resolve conflict without just trading insults. Without etiquette, the irritations in modern life are so abrasive that you see people turning to the law to regulate everyday behavior. This frightens me; it's a major inroad on our basic freedoms.

The difference between narcissism and self-love is a matter of depth. Narcissus falls in love not with the self, but with an image or reflection of the self—with the persona, the mask. The narcissist sees himself through the eyes of another, changes his lifestyle to conform with what is admired by others, tailors his behavior and expression of feelings to what will please others. Narcissism is … voluntary blindness, an agreement … not to look beneath the surface.

When you refrain from habitual thoughts and behavior, the uncomfortable feelings will still be there. They don't magically disappear. Over the years, I've come to call resting with the discomfort the detox period, because when you don't act on your habitual patterns, it's like giving up an addiction. You're left with the feelings you were trying to escape. The practice is to make a wholehearted relationship with that

Neither Watt's steam engine nor Whitney's standardized parts really started the Industrial Revolution, although each has been awarded that claim, in the past. The real start was the awakening of scientific and technological thoughts during the Renaissance, with the idea that the lawful behavior of nature can be understood, analyzed, and manipulated to accomplish useful ends. That idea itself, alone, was not enough, however, for not until the creation and evolution of blueprints was it possible to express exactly how power and parts were to be combined for each specific task at hand.

Douglas T. Ross

They have called me bizarre, neurotic or silly, and said that what I am doing is pointless. "Animals don't need a human to teach them how to behave." Many of these critics are generally misinformed about my intentions. This is not a one-time experiment. My "science," or my way of researching wolf behavior, is from inside the pack and actually becoming part of their world — exploring the unknown and untested. I think the madness that some people will see in living alongside a pack of wolves will be justified when people see the results of what we've learned.

As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behavior of another person or a collective of persons.

In some instances, you may care so much about the person who has hurt you, or be so unable to be angry with him (or with anyone), that you rationalize his hurtful acts by finding some basis in your own actions for his hurtful behavior; you then feel guilty rather than angry. Put in other terms, you become angry with yourself rather than with the one who hurt you.

Animals behave in set patterns, which is why we are able to hunt and kill them. Only man has the capacity to consciously alter his behavior, to improvise and overcome the weight of routine and habit.

Robert Greene (American author)

While mere process of thinking is the process of habits, ideals, definitions, investigations, classifications, valuations and behavior, due process of thinking, which is due process of law, is the process of correct habits, right ideals, true definitions, sincere investigation, reasonable classification, reasonable value, and justice; whereas its opposite, undue process, is perverse habit, wrong ideals, double meanings, partial investigation, class legislation, confiscation and injustice.

John R. Commons

Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.

Benjamin N. Cardozo

People adjust their behavior to fit the society they live in. They integrate because they have to. But what they are on the inside doesn't change.

I'm afraid that's inappropriate behavior for the schoolyard," Xavier teased. "I know my charm is hard to resist, but please tray and control yourself.

Alexandra Adornetto

It is always useful to think badly about people one has exploited or plans to exploit... No one likes to think of him or herself as a bad person. To treat badly another person whom we consider a reasonable human being creates a tension between act and attitude that demands resolution. We cannot erase what we have done, and to alter our future behavior may not be in our interest. To change our attitude is easier.

James W. Loewen

We cannot idealize technology. Technology is only and always the reflection of our own imagination, and its uses must be conditioned by our own values. Technology can help cure diseases, but we can prevent a lot of diseases by old-fashioned changes in behavior.

An acknowledgment of the full spectrum of consciousness would profoundly alter the course of every one of the modern disciplines it touches — and that, of course, is an essential aspect of integral studies... A full-spectrum approach to human consciousness and behavior means that men and women have available to them a spectrum of knowing — a spectrum that includes, at the very least, the eye of flesh, the eye of mind, and the eye of spirit.