Behavior Quotes

“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
― Seneca, Seneca's Morals: Of a Happy Life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency

“Reality denied comes back to haunt.”
― Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

“Guys always think tears are a sign of weakness. They’re a sign of FRUSTRATION. She’s only crying so she won’t cut your throat in your sleep. So make nice and be grateful.”
― Donna Barr

“Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

“Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women."

[Commencement Address, Wellesley College, 1996]”
― Nora Ephron

“Because you believed I was capable of behaving decently, I did.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Devil and Miss Prym

“Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden—but it’s there. As we’ll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain.”
― Gabor Mate, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behaviour.”
― Gabor Mate, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It
always made me want to do just the opposite.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit

“If you have feelings for someone, let them know. It doesn’t matter if they can be in your life or not. Maybe, it is just enough for both of you to release the truth, so healing can occur. The opposite is true, as well. If you don’t have feelings for someone then never let another person suggest that you do. Protect your reputation and be responsible for the wrong information spread about you. Never allow anyone to live with a false belief or unfounded hope about you. An honorable person sets the record straight, so that person can move on with their life.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It's essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don't. The reality isn't important: what's important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.”
― Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

“Tantrums are seldom about the thing they appear to be about.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“Allow yourself to think only those thoughts that match your principles and can bear the bright light of day. Day by day, your choices, your thoughts, your actions fashion the person you become. Your integrity determines your destiny.”
― Heraclitus

“Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. Perhaps this is why we always love madly someone who treats us with indifference.”
― Cesare Pavese, Il mestiere di vivere: Diario 1935-1950

“Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social and demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough.”
― Alain de Botton

“Handsome is as handsome does”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“We practically always excuse things when we understand them”
― Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time

“We create our fate every day . . . most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior.”
― Henry Miller

“When we are looking for the unexpected, we are not only looking for the unexpected in ourselves, but we are also curious about the unexpected in the behavior of the others. So as to know the others, we have got to learn how and where they differ from us. By understanding this, we are able to establish an uplifting link with otherness. ( "Looking for the unexpected" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples.”
― Philip G. Zimbardo

“We are sometimes astounded by the behavior of emotional outlaws, as they act in line with their own standards, but proceed like bulls-in-a-china-shop, create one heck of a mess in their living environment and bring about shocking disturbing dissensions, ever since their inner construction clashes with our emotional architecture. (“Disruption”)”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Girls," their mother interjected, "you must both stop being strange - it is unattractive. And don't forget your hats. It would be absolutely the end for me if you two came down with freckles at a time like this.”
― Anna Godbersen, The Luxe

“Sometimes people will hear you and be able to change their behavior, but often their behavior has more to do with their own need for approval than with your need for support. No matter what their response, you need to be firm and hold your ground. At the end of the day, your health is your responsibility.”
― Jillian Michaels, Winning by Losing: Drop the Weight, Change Your Life

“So I've started wearing sweatpants to bed because I really don't need Santa seeing me in my underwear.”
― Jeff Kinney, Cabin Fever

“If you're capable of despising your own behavior, you might just love yourself.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“It is a sin to believe evil of others but it is seldom a mistake.”
― Garrison Keillor

“Your goodness must have some edge to it -- else it is none.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Culture, Behavior, Beauty, Books, Art, Eloquence, Power, Wealth, Illusions