Carol Tavris Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification.

Carol Tavris
If anger isn't released, it turns inward and metamorphoses into another creature altogether.

Carol Tavris
Of course, if you photograph the behavior of women and men at a particular time in history, in a particular situation, you will capture differences. But the error lies in inferring that a snapshot is a lasting picture. What women and men do at a moment in time tells us nothing about what women and men are in some unvarying sense - or about what they can be.

Carol Tavris
The individualism of American life, to our glory and despair, creates anger and encourages its release; for when everything is possible, limitations are irksome. When the desires of the self come first, the needs of others are annoying. When we think we deserve it all, reaping only a portion can enrage.

Carol Tavris
Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and they are usually denigrated for their efforts.

Carol Tavris
In sports as in child rearing, marital arguments, or tantrums, the same laws of learning apply; when an emotion is encouraged and the rules permit it, it is perpetuated, not 'drained.'... An emotion without social rules of containment and expression is like an egg without a shell: a gooey mess...

Carol Tavris
For some of the large indignities of life, the best remedy is direct action. For the small indignities, the best remedy is a Charlie Chaplin movie. The hard part is knowing the difference.

Carol Tavris
No one seems to have learned, or can remember, the magic words that calm people when they are frightened or threatened: "I'm sorry; I didn't see you; are you all right?" The inability to speak these words, I observe, goes right along with a propensity for mindless insults.

Carol Tavris
History is written by the victors, but it's victims who write the memoirs.

Carol Tavris