Behavior Quotes
More Behavior Quotes
A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success in life.
joyce brothers— As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 43
One is faced with a dilemma: If one places total trust in all other users, one is vulnerable to the antisocial behavior of any malicious user consider the case of viruses. But if one tries to be totally reclusive and isolated, one is not only bored, but one's information universe will cease to grow and be enhanced by interaction with others. The result is that most of us operate in a complicated trade-off zone with various arrangements of trust and security mechanisms.
fernando j. "corby" corbató— p. 79 (On Building Systems That Will Fail (1991))
Whatever his private behavior, the man and his work existed in different realms. Mencken's defects were commonplace; his virtues were not. So wonderfully uninhibited was his style that even a single sentence in a routine article proclaimed its begetter.
— 1994 Of H L Mencken. In the NewYork Times Book Review, 8 May.
There are two types of expression: the loka dharma and the natya dharma . Loka dharma is very natural, similar to the behavior of daily life, nitya dharma is an idealized behavior that is used in dance....one were a realistic behavior and the other stylized, saying that Indian art has always favoured idealism on stage.
— By Samjukta Panigrahi quoted in "New Theatre Quarterly 55", p.259
"nonlinear interactions almost always make the behavior of the aggregate more complicated than would be predicted by summing or averaging."
john henry holland— p. 23 (Ch 1. Basic Elements)
We are inescapably the result of a long heritage of learning, adaptation, mutation and evolution, the product of a history which predates our birth as a biological species and stretches back over many thousand millennia... Going further back, we share a common ancestry with our fellow primates; and going still further back, we share a common ancestry with all other living creatures and plants down to the simplest microbe. The further back we go, the greater the difference from external appearances and behavior patterns which we observe today.
fred hoyle— Lifecloud: The Origin of Life in the Universe (1978), p.15
It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student's life.
b. f. skinner— As quoted in Performance-based Assessment for Middle and High School Physical Education (2002) by Jacalyn Lea Lund and Mary Fortman Kirk, p. 165
Women watched for the spectacular performances of the men , and there can be no reasonable doubt that the presence of an audience is a very important factor in shaping the men's behavior. In fact, it is probable that the men are more exhibitionistic because the women admire their performances. Conversely, there can be no doubt that the spectacular behavior is a stimulus which summons the audience together, promoting in the women the appropriate behavior.
Gregory Bateson— Bateson as cited in: David Lipset (1982) Gregory Bateson: the legacy of a scientist. p.143
Jimmy Carter Calls Condi Rice a Liar ... Jimmy Carter continues to plumb new depths of disgraceful behavior: Carter says Secretary Rice ‘not telling truth’.
charles foster johnson— April 23, 2008 [30]
Paul Valéry insists on the inescapable commitment of the poetic language to the negation. The verses of this language “ne parlent jamais que de choses absentes.” They speak of that which, though absent, haunts the established universe of discourse and behavior as its most tabooed possibility neither heaven nor hell, neither good nor evil but simply “le bonheur.”
herbert marcuse— p. 67 (One-Dimensional Man (1964))
To the degree to which they correspond to the given reality, thought and behavior express a false consciousness, responding to and contributing to the preservation of a false order of facts. And this false consciousness has become embodied in the prevailing technical apparatus which in turn reproduces it.
herbert marcuse— p. 145 (One-Dimensional Man (1964))
Mr. Ellis is neither a scientist nor an expert on the natural behavior of wolves.
l. david mech— B.J. King, "Why Are Wolf Scientists Howling At Jodi Picoult?" NPR. (April 19, 2012)
There's a gigantic gray area between good moral behavior and outright felonious activities. I call that the Weasel Zone and it's where most of life happens.
scott adams— Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel (2002)
Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.
benjamin n. cardozo— Meinhard v. Salmon, 249 N.Y. 458, 164 N.E. 545 (N.Y. 1928), describing the fiduciary duties inherent in a partnership.
The behavior of the Taliban as well as their extremist attitudes do not correspond in any way with a tolerant Islam. We have always been opposed to extremist tendencies of Islam and we still are. We have not stopped insisting on defending an Islam of tolerance which would be profitable to every Muslim, in Afghanistan and in the whole world, and we will always defend it.
ahmad shah massoud— Meeting with European legislators (11 June 2000)
A person’s behavior is rational if it is in his best interests, given his information
robert aumann— p. 2 (War and peace (2005))
I am unable to distinguish clearly between your religious ceremonies and apparently identical behavior at the sporting and cultural functions you have transmitted to me.
arthur c. clarke— Chapter 16 “Conversations with Starglider” (p. 94)
In Stage I, divorces were not allowed, so men's [sexual] affairs did not put women's economic security in jeopardy; in Stage II, affairs could lead to divorce, so men's affairs did place women's economic security in jeopardy. We did not want political leaders who would be role models for behavior that would put women's economic security in jeopardy.
warren farrell— p. 63. (Part 1: The Myth of Male Power)
Darwinian natural selection only yields adaptation to changing local environments, and better function in an immediate habitat might just as well be achieved by greater simplicity in form and behavior as by ever-increasing complexity.
stephen jay gould— Triumph of the Root-Heads, p. 355
One cannot demand of a scholar that he show himself a scholar everywhere in society, but the whole tenor of his behavior must none the less betray the thinker, he must always be instructive, his way of judging a thing must even in the smallest matters be such that people can see what it will amount to when, quietly and self-collected, he puts this power to scholarly use.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg— J 85 (Notebook J (1789))
No skill, no special aptitude, no vividness of imagination or precision of thinking would go unrecognized because the child who possessed it was of one sex rather than the other. No child would be relentlessly shaped to one pattern of behavior, but instead there should be many patterns, in a world that had learned to allow to each individual the pattern which was most congenial to his gifts.
Margaret Mead— p.321 (Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, 1935)
With good behavior I'll be out in seven years Don't worry over me or shed any tears I've learned a lot in here and I know what a chance I blew The next time I won't make the same mistake I'll shoot the camera out too I'm learning all kinds of things you can do When you're broke
todd snider— Broke (Near Truths and Hotel Rooms (2003))
We have presented these patterns as explicitly and systematically as we can, in order to make it easy for you to learn them. We have presented them in great detail, and warned you about all the mistakes we and others have made with them, to make it hard for you to use them inappropriately. Once you have taken the time to learn these methods thoroughly, you can become more flexible and artistic in utilizing them with clients, with confidence that your behavior will remain systematic and effective.
— Steve and Connierae Andreas, Change your mind and keep the Change, 1987, pp. x–xi
The capacity of the human mind for formulating and solving complex problems is very small compared with the size of the problems whose solution is required for objectively rational behavior in the real world or even for a reasonable approximation to such objective rationality.
— Herbert Simon (1957) Models of Man. p.198
Both from these scanty data and from an examination of the postulates of the economic models it appears probable that, however adaptive the behavior of organisms in learning and choice situations, this adaptiveness falls far short of the ideal of ‘maximizing’ postulated in economic theory. Evidently, organisms adapt well enough to‘satisfice’; theydo not, in general, ‘optimize’.
— Herbert A. Simon (1956) in “Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment”, Psychological Review 63(2), p.129, quoted in “Bounded Rationality and Macroeconomics”
I am perfectly willing to share the room with a fly, as long as he is patrolling that portion of the room I don't occupy. But if he starts that smart-ass fly shit, buzzing my head and repeatedly landing on my arm, he is engaging in high-risk behavior.
George carlin— George Carlin, Brain Droppings (1997)
The radical empiricist onslaught ... provides the methodological justification for the debunking of the mind by the intellectuals a positivism which, in its denial of the transcending elements of Reason, forms the academic counterpart of the socially required behavior.
— Herbert Marcuse (1964) One-Dimensional Man, p.13
