Zelda Stanley > Zelda's Quotes

“Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian

“[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

“Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can kill you.”
― Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil

“Before I knew that a man could kill a man, because it happens all the time. Now I know that even the person with whom you've shared food, or whom you've slept, even he can kill you with no trouble. The closest neighbor can kill you with his teeth: that is what I have Learned since the genocide, and my eyes no longer gaze the same on the face of the world.”
― Philip G Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect

“The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.”
― Philip Zimbardo

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

“The level of shyness has gone up dramatically in the last decade. I think shyness is an index of social pathology rather than a pathology of the individual.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“We can assume that most people, most of the time, are moral creatures. But imagine that this morality is like a gearshift that at times gets pushed into neutral. When that happens, morality is disengaged. If the car happens to be on an incline, car and driver move precipitously downhill. It is then the nature of the circumstances that determines outcomes, not the driver's skills or intentions.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“I’ve always been curious about the psychology of the person behind the mask...”
― Philip G. Zimbardo

“Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant —
because you're always going against the conformity of the group.”
― Philip G. Zimbardo

“Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behavior, more so that we recognize or acknowledge.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“Most of us perceive Evil as an entity, a quality that is inherent in some people and not in others. Bad seeds ultimately produce bad fruits as their destinies unfold. . . Upholding a Good-Evil dichotomy also takes ‘good people’ off the responsibility hook. They are freed from even considering their possible role in creating, sustaining, perpetuating, or conceding to the conditions that contribute to delinquency, crime, vandalism, teasing, bullying, rape, torture, terror, and violence.”
― Philip G. Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

“One can't live mindfully without being enmeshed in psychological processes that are around us.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“It's not a question of getting more moral soldiers. Instead it's a question of recognizing how the situation of war (and the cultural institutions/practices of the military that we have designed to "prepare" people for that situation) creates monsters out of us all.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“Our personal identities are socially situated. We are where we live, eat, work, and make love. [...]

Our sense of identity is in large measure conferred on us by others in the ways they treat or mistreat us, recognize or ignore us, praise us or punish us. Some people make us timid and shy; others elicit our sex appeal and dominance. In some groups we are made leaders, while in others we are reduced to being followers. We come to live up to or down to the expectations others have of us. The expectations of others often become self-fulfilling prophecies. Without realizing it, we often behave in ways that confirm the beliefs others have about us. Those subjective beliefs create new realities for us. We often become who other people think we are, in their eyes and in our behavior.”
― Philip G. Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

“While no one can change events that occurred in the past, everyone can change attitudes and beliefs about them.”
― Philip G. Zimbardo, The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life

“We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“Time perspective is one of the most powerful influences on all of human behavior. We're trying to show how people become biased to being exclusively past-, present- or future-oriented.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?”
― Philip Zimbardo

“Majority decisions tend to be made without engaging the systematic thought and critical thinking skills of the individuals in the group. Given the force of the group's normative power to shape the opinions of the followers who conform without thinking things through, they are often taken at face value. The persistent minority forces the others to process the relevant information more mindfully. Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.”
― Philip G. Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

“Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic.”
― Philip Zimbardo

“When Billie Holiday came15 to London in the 1950s, she was amazed. They “are civilized about it and they have no narcotics problem at all,” she explained. “One day America is going to smarten up and do the”
― Johann Hari, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs