Quotes About Behavior

Bad people very often do one good thing.

It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.

Those first form kids!' said Tessie, in disgust. 'Honestly, they ought to be in a kindergarten, the way they behave!

Soon Lotta, Jimmy, and the two grown-ups were sitting round the tea-table. Lotta was on her very best behaviour. She didn't make a single face.

Inside the mirrored elevator, Mulch used a telescopic pointer to push P for the penthouse. For the first few months he had jumped to reach the button, but that was undignified behavior for a millionaire. And besides, he was certain that Art could hear the thumping from the security desk.

She supposed this irritating bickering was how the males of every species showed affection.

Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you and be silent.

Remember that you ought to behave in life as you would at a banquet. As something is being passed around it comes to you; stretch out your hand, take a portion of it politely. It passes on; do not detain it. Or it has not come to you yet; do not project your desire to meet it, but wait until it comes in front of you. So act toward children, so toward a wife, so toward office, so toward wealth.

this is your business—to act well the given part, but to choose it belongs to another.

So don't make a show of your philosophical learning to the uninitiated, show them by your actions what you have absorbed.

Adopt new habits yourself: consolidate your principles by putting them into practice.

Tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly.

We should realize that an opinion is not easily formed unless a person says and hears the same things every day and practises them in real life.

If you have assumed a character above your strength, you have both acted in this matter in an unbecoming way, and you have neglected that which you might have fulfilled.

So if you like doing something, do it regularly; if you don't like doing something, make a habit of doing something different.

Does anyone bathe hastily? Do not say that they do it ill, but hastily. Does anyone drink much wine? Do not say that they do ill, but that they drink a great deal. For unless you perfectly understand their motives, how should you know if they act ill? Thus you will not risk yielding to any appearances except those you fully comprehend.

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

We must consider what is the time for singing, what the time for play, and in whose presence: what will be unsuited to the occasion; whether our companions are to despise us, or we to despise ourselves: when to jest, and whom to mock at: and on what occasion to be conciliatory and to whom: in a word, how one ought to maintain one's character in society. Wherever you swerve from any of these principles, you suffer loss at once; not loss from without, but issuing from the very act itself.

Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation. Does it pass by you? Don't stop it. Is it not yet come? Don't stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you.

The true basis for being respected is to appear refined and modest.

Well, then, biting, kicking, wanton imprisonment and beheading – is that what our nature entails? No; rather, acts of kindness, cooperation and good will. And so, whether you like it or not, a person fares poorly whenever he acts like an insensitive brute.

A vine cannot behave olively, nor an olive tree vinely – it is impossible, inconceivable.

Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, don't talk how persons ought to eat, but eat as you ought.

Nothing is in reality either pleasant or unpleasant by nature but all things become so through habit.