Quote

That human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside. The situation is the external environment. The inner environment is genes, moral history, religious training.

Philip Zimbardo

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Philip Zimbardo
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: March 23
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Social Psychologist
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Philip George Zimbardo
Philip G. Zimbardo
Religious
Inner
History
Training
Human
Behavior
Humans
Outside
Things
Inside
Environment
Influenced
Situation
Genes
Moral
External

More quotes by Philip Zimbardo

Image
I was discriminated against because I was Jewish, Italian, black and Puerto Rican. But maybe the worst prejudice I experienced was against the poor. I grew up on welfare and often had to move in the middle of the night because we couldn't pay the rent.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
The greatest gift that you can give to others and to yourself is time. Embrace the gift of time whether you give it or receive it.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution. Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
The line between good and evil is movable and it's permeable.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
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
Image
To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant — because you're always going against the conformity of the group.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can kill you.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
In one sense, the Stanford prison study is more like a Greek drama than a traditional experiment, in that we have humanity, represented by a bunch of good people, pitted against an evil-producing situation. The question is, does the goodness of the people overwhelm the bad situation, or does the bad situation overwhelm the good people?
Philip Zimbardo
Image
Coming from New York, I know that if you go by a delicatessen, and you put a sweet cucumber in the vinegar barrel, the cucumber might say, No, I want to retain my sweetness. But it's hopeless. The barrel will turn the sweet cucumber into a pickle. You can't be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
Fear is the State's psychological weapon of choice to frighten citizens into sacrificing their basic freedoms and rule-of-law protections in exchange for the security promised by their all-powerful government.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
Our time is brief, and it will pass no matter what we do. So let us have purpose in spending it. Let us spend it so that our time matters to each of us, and matters to all those whose lives we touch.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
Depending on whom you ask, time is money, time is love, time is work, time is play, time is enjoying friends, time is raising children, and time is much more. Time is what you make of it.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
Where can you find purpose? Like success and happiness, our purpose exists in the present, and we constantly strive toward the future to maintain it. What it is for which we strive is up to each of us. The important thing is that we strive toward something.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
There are no limits to what I would do to make my classes exciting, interesting, unpredictable.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
Time matters because we are finite, because time is the medium in which we live our lives.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
I'm saying to be a hero it means you step accross the line and are willing to make a sacrifice, so heroes always are making a sacrifice. Heroes always take a risk. Heroes always deviant. Heroes always doing something that most people don't and we want to change - I want to democratise heroism to say any of us can be a hero.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed.
Philip Zimbardo
Image
After doing psychology for half a century, my passion for all of it is greater than ever.
Philip Zimbardo