Quotes About Behavior

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids

Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.

Men are good in but one way, but bad in many.

We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.

As our acts vary, our habits will follow in their course.

It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good. But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do.

Perfected by the offices and duties of social life, man is the best, but, rude and undisciplined, he is the very worst of animals.

The instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of creatures; and through imitation he learns his earliest lessons.

That man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal who has the gift of speech.

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act by a habit.

you did it, not because you're being punished. He can tell the difference too!

the ability of, say, a male praying mantis to continue coitus even as his mate chews off his head makes the point.

From this point of view, a male cuttlefish who copulates with a dead female is not only wasting his time but making a serious philosophical mistake.

The junkbird attracts the attention of its prospective mate by opening wide a tail-fan of feathers spelling out, 'You have already won a prize.

Tenía un carácter apacible y su trato era cortés y afectuoso.

A child's conduct will reflect the ways of his parents.

As much as God loves his children, it is misplaced faith that asks him to prevent all pain in this life, especially the pain we created for ourselves. When we ask God to remove the natural consequences of our own behavior, we set ourselves up for disappointment and frustration. As a wise friend once said, "It is foolish to think you can sow your wild oats on Saturday and pray for crop failure on Sunday.

A good systems thinker, particularly in an organizational setting, is someone who can see four levels operating simultaneously: events, patterns of behavior, systems, and mental models.

Paddy explained his increasingly wild behaviour as 'A bookish attempt to coerce life into a closer resemblance to literature'

Why care for grammar as long as we are good?