Quotes About Behavior

Thus the fundamental illusion from which we must be disentangled, or "undone," is that the proper definition of the life of faith itself is first and foremost a belief system with behavioral consequences, rather than a way of being in the world whose behavior consequences make clear the things we believe. In other words, we are not acting upon beliefs so much as we are believing through action—we are not believers who act but actors who believe.

It has already been noted that children in dysfunctional families feel responsible for their family's problems and also for solving them. There are basically three ways in which children attempt to save their families: by being invisible, ,by being bad, or by being good.

After all, he had secrets to keep about his sexual identity and behavior, and having a wife made him look more 'normal' than not having one. I guess that was what he meant when he said he needed me.

I am trying to understand what it means to own a thing, especially a wild and living being. To have exclusive rights to its fate? To dispose of it at will? To deny others its use? Ownership seems a uniquely human behavior, a social contract validating the desire for purposeless possession and control.

The relationship of gratitude and reciprocity thus developed can increase the evolutionary fitness of both plant and animal. A species and a culture that treat the natural world with respect and reciprocity will surely pass on genes to ensuing generations with a higher frequency than the people who destroy it. The stories we choose to shape our behaviors have adaptive consequences.

The behavior of these three blurs the distinction at the edge between life and death.

people who know how to read the land for nuts and carry them home to safety will survive the February blizzards and pass on that behavior to their progeny, not by genetic transmission but by cultural practice.

A species and a culture that treat the natural world with respect and reciprocity will surely pass on genes to ensuing generations with a higher frequency than the people who destroy it. The stories we choose to shape our behaviors have adaptive consequences

I spent most of my teen years trying to figure out the rules of life, theories for why things happened, why people behaved as they did, and mostly I came to the conclusion that either there were no rules, or the rules sucked. Reading science fiction wasn't about imagining myself into some more exciting life filled with adventure, it was about finding a world where things worked the way I wanted them to.

Cats only pretend to be domesticated if they think there's a bowl of milk in it for them.

Cruelty is a part of nature, at least of human nature, but it is the one thing that seems unnatural to us.

It is remarkable, in cats, that the outer life they reveal to their masters is one of perpetual boredom.

Demand, belittle, insult, accuse, sulk, punish with the meanest words. It was just a matter of degrees; abuse is abuse.

In the wake of the recent shootings, several school districts have implemented 'student profiling.' School administrators have a checklist of 'suspicious' behavior to use to evaluate each student's potential for violence.

intentions don't matter in parenting. Kids don't understand what you mean. They understand what you do.

My father insisted that the boys in my life were directly responsible for my juvenile-delinquent tendencies. My mother, more accurately, assumed that I was the bad influence.

We can't control what people do or say, even if it's dumb.

The Four Virtues--virtue, demeanor, speech, and work.

Always remember how to behave, how to speak to people, how to respect the world around you

I now understand that we learned these songs and stories not just to teach us how to behave but because we would be living out variations of them over and over again throughout our lives.

I mean—are some men just flawed by nature? Or do we enable their bad behavior, make it worse in a way because we hide it, and don't demand better from them?

Didn't it seem like really thin, gorgeous people were always so mean? Where did they get that aura of entitlement? And didn't it seem like people always fawned over them even though they behaved badly? Why was that?

He didn't respect or even understand that other people had boundaries and only bullies pushed through them.

People act out of love or they act out of fear," she said. "Those are the only two primary motivators.