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Behavior Quotes

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Behavior Quotes

“The notion that a society could be regulated entirely by market forces is a utopian fantasy: an impossible dream generated by imagining what the world would be like if everyone's behavior was utterly consistent with some abstract moral ideal-in this case, economic theories that assume all human action is based on calculating, systematic, (but scrupulously law-abiding), greed.”

“The soul contains few secrets and longings which cannot be sensibly discussed, analyzed, and polled. Solitude, the very condition which sustained the individual against and beyond his society, has become technically impossible. Logical and linguistic analysis demonstrate that the old metaphysical problems are illusory problems; the quest for the "meaning" of things can be reformulated as the quest for the meaning of words, and the established universe of discourse and behavior can provide perfectly adequate criteria for the answer.”

Source: One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

“The outstanding feature of behavior is that it is often quite easy to recognize but extremely difficult or impossible to describe with precision.”

Easy Difficult Impossible Behavior Features Outstanding Precision

Author:Anatol Rapoport

“If you manage a team of 10 people, its quite possible to do so with very few mistakes or bad behaviors. If you manage an organization of 1,000 people it is quite impossible. At a certain size, your company will do things that are so bad that you never imagined that youd be associated with that kind of incompetence.”

People Ifs Kind Certain Mistake Company Impossible Team Behavior Organization Size Manage Incompetence Bad Behavior

Author:Ben Horowitz

“It's impossible to expect polite behavior from people who've never witnessed it.”

People Impossible Behavior Polite

Author:Kathleen Parker

“It's impossible for minorities, impossible for people of color to be ever guilty of hate crimes. Because their only crimes are justified. Their crimes are justifiable. It’s retribution and payback for years and decades and maybe even centuries of oppressive behavior at the hands of the white majority.”

People Years Hands Hate White Impossible Century Crime Color Behavior Majority Decades Guilty Minorities Justified Hate Crime Retribution Payback

Author:Rush Limbaugh

“It would be really worrying if, as a Darwinian, it was impossible to think of ways in which our behavior could be explained.”

Ifs Thinking Way Would Be Worry Impossible Behavior

Author:Richard Dawkins

“Since Reagan, it's almost impossible to get funding for research on sexual pleasure. You can find sexual behavior research, but not sexual pleasure. And let alone lesbian or homosexual sexuality.”

Pleasure Impossible Behavior Research Sexuality Homosexual Funding

Author:Naomi Wolf

“My view is that friendship permeates human life and is involved in almost everything we think, feel, and do. For that very reason, there is no behavior that is characteristic of friendship. Two people can engage in the very same behavior - visiting someone in hospital, for example - and yet only one of them might be doing so out of friendship; moreover, friends can be doing absolutely anything together, even quarrel or fight. That means that it is difficult, if not impossible, to recognize a friendship simply on the basis of what people do.”

People Thinking Mean Reason Together Fighting Difficult Impossible Behavior

Author:Alexander Nehamas

“Even after the age of 50 it was impossible for me to see my mother as a human being. I felt she was a monster, and she had subtly been influencing my behavior and my thoughts and my dreams for so long that she was kind of a monster; she was a demon. And when I brought her back to life, I could feel that malevolent presence around me again, that woman who was totally incapable of giving nurturing to anybody, and, you know, her selfishness and her withdrawn indifference to everything but her own needs.”

Giving Kind Long Dream Age Mother Impossible Influence Behavior Selfishness Indifference Demon My Thoughts Nurturing

Author:David Small

“It is impossible for anyone to be responsible for another person's behavior. The most you or any leader can do is to encourage each one to be responsible for himself.”

Persons Can Do Leader Path Impossible Teaching Behavior Responsible Being Responsible Following Your Own Path

Author:Robert A. Heinlein

“Human beings, whatever their backgrounds, are more open than we think, that their behavior cannot be confidently predicted from their past, that we are all creatures vulnerable to new thoughts, new attitudes. And while such vulnerability creates all sorts of possibilities, both good and bad, its very existence is exciting. It means that no human being should be written off, no change in thinking deemed impossible.”

Source: The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy

“As a rider, you must slowly and methodically show your horse what is appropriate. You also have to discourage what's inappropriate, not by making the inappropriate impossible, but by making it difficult so that the horse himself chooses appropriate behavior. You can't choose it for him; you can only make it difficult for him to make the wrong choices. If, however, you make it impossible for him to make the wrong choices, you're making war.”

Ifs War Shows Choices Difficult Impossible Behavior Horse Appropriate Discouraging Riders Inappropriate Wrong Choices Appropriate Behavior

Author:Buck Brannaman

“People underestimate the importance of dilligence as a virtue. No doubt it has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems. It is defined as "the constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken."... Understood, however, as the prerequisite of great accomplishment, diligence stands as one of the most difficult challenges facing any group of people who take on tasks of risk and consequence. It sets a high, seemingly impossible, expectation for performance and human behavior.”