Behavior Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Along with others, I have tried to pry economists away from narrow assumptions about self interest. Behavior is driven by a much richer set of values and preferences.

But you cannot have harmony without a commitment to ethical behavior. It's the fence that keeps out the goats that will eat all the young shoots in your garden.

A man that loves to be peevish and paramount, and to play the sovereign at every turn, does but blast the blessings of life, and swagger away his own enjoyments; and not to enlarge upon not folly, not to mention the injustice of such a behavior, it is always the sign of a little, unbenevolent temper. It is disease and discredit all over, and there is no more greatness in it, than in the swelling of a dropsy.

Behavior, n. Conduct, as determined, not by principle, but by breeding.

Reducing the thinking required to take the next action increases the likelihood of the desired behavior occurring unconsciously.

Profit is not the explanation, cause, or rationale of business behavior and business decisions, but the test of their validity.

The very notion that a candidate should openly solicit votes violated the principled presumption that such behavior itself represented a confession of unworthiness for national office.

If someone is being rude to a black person on the train, it is your job to challenge that person even if you do get punched in the face. We must always challenge behavior and speech which is othering certain groups.

Molly Scott Cato

We're all together inside a system that scripts and constructs not just behavior but imagination.

Claudia Rankine

Consumers cannot think in abstractions. They cannot envision a new concept. They cannot predict their behavior. They can only compare against their current frame of reference. So you need to make the big leap for them. You need to provide them with a reason to buy, a reason to brag to their friends. Expect new-to-the-world ideas to fall on deaf ears. Consumers will, however, change their tune when they can see, touch, and explore.

Michael J. Silverstein

Much of the time, the things we feel guilty about are not our issues. Another person behaves inappropriately or in some way violates our boundaries. We challenge the behavior, and the person gets angry and defensive. Then we feel guilty.

If the purpose of scientific methodology is to prescribe or expound a system of enquiry or even a code of practice for scientific behavior, then scientists seem able to get on very well without it.

And I thought how sad it was that, for all our sophisticated intellect, for all our noble aspirations, our aggressive behavior was not just similar in many ways to that of the chimpanzees - it was even worse. Worse because human beings have the potential to rise above their baser instincts, whereas chimpanzees probably do not.

Marcuse wrote: "Perhaps an accident may alter the situation, but unless the recognition of what is being done and what is being prevented subverts the consciousness and the behavior of man, not even a catastrophe will bring about the change."...

Daniel Pinchbeck

Your beliefs about yourself and your world create your expectations.
Your expectations determine your attitude.
Your attitude determines your behavior and the way you relate to other people.
And the way you behave toward and relate to other people determines how they relate to and behave toward you.

Time and time again we forget all too easily that nonviolent action embraces a wide and imaginative range of behavior which can always be stepped up.

Though the man-apes often fought and wrestled one another, their disputes very seldom resulted in serious injuries. Having no claws or fighting canine teeth, and being well protected by hair, they could not inflict much harm on one another. In any event, they had little surplus energy for such unproductive behavior; snarling and threatening was a much more efficient way of asserting their points of view.

Arthur C. Clarke

Positive reinforcement generates more behavior than is minimally required. We call this discretionary effort, and its presence in the workplace is the only way an organization can maximize performance.

It seems to me that we have to draw the line in sibling rivalry whenever rivalry goes out of bounds into destructive behavior of aphysical or verbal kind. The principle needs to be this: Whatever the reasons for your feelings you will have to find civilized solutions.

Companies leverage two basic pulleys of human behavior to increase the likelihood of an action occuring: the ease of performing an action and the psychological motivation to do it.

School success is not predicted by a child's fund of facts or a precocious ability to read as much as by emotional and social measures; being self-assured and interested: knowing what kind of behavior is expected and how to rein in the impulse to misbehave; being able to wait, to follow directions, and to turn to teachers for help; and expressing needs while getting along with other children.

If you take control of your behavior, your emotions will fall into place.

John C. Maxwell

Behavior is a much better barometer of what you are than words.

Although both my grandfathers encountered ethnic prejudice, they viewed this as an aberration-a failure of some Americans to live up to the nation's ideals. It did not dawn on them to blame the bad behavior of some Americans on America itself.

Robert P. George

All behavior involves conscious or unconscious selection of particular actions out of all those which are physically possible to the actor and to those persons over whom he exercises influence and authority.

Herbert A. Simon