Philip Zimbardo Quotes

Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Philip Zimbardo Quotes. The wide variety of quotes available makes it possible to find a quote to suit your needs. You’ve likely heard some of the Philip Zimbardo Quotes before, but that’s because they truly are great.

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

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

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

My early childhood prepared me to be a social psychologist. I grew up in a South Bronx ghetto in a very poor family. From Sicilian origin, I was the first person in my family to complete high school, let alone go to college.

Philip Zimbardo

Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse.

Philip Zimbardo

A good cult delivers on its promises. A good cult nourishes the needs of its members, has transparency and integrity, and creates provisions for challenging its leadership openly. A good cult expands the freedoms and well-being of its members rather than limits them.

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

The Stanford prison experiment came out of class exercises in which I encouraged students to understand the dynamics of prison life.

Philip Zimbardo

Ideas for my first experiments in human aggression came from discussions we had in a research seminar about William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies.’

Philip Zimbardo

After doing psychology for half a century, my passion for all of it is greater than ever.

Philip Zimbardo

At North Hollywood High School, I was shunned by everyone. I would sit down in the cafeteria, and students would get up from the table and walk away. They thought I was from the Mafia.

Philip Zimbardo

I started studying shyness in adults in 1972. Shyness operates at so many different levels. Out of that research came the Stanford shyness clinic in 1977.

Philip Zimbardo

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

Bullies are often people who are shy and can’t make friends easily, so, as the theme of the movie ‘A Bronx Tale‘ tells us, it is better to be feared if you can’t be loved.

Philip Zimbardo

One can’t live mindfully without being enmeshed in psychological processes that are around us.

Philip Zimbardo

Prejudice and discrimination have always been a big part of my life. When I was 6, I got beat up and called dirty Jew boy because they thought I looked Jewish.

Philip Zimbardo

Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behavior, more so that we recognize or acknowledge.

Philip Zimbardo

Boys are 30 percent more likely than girls to drop out of school. In Canada, five boys drop out for every three girls. Girls outperform boys now at every level, from elementary school to graduate school.

Philip Zimbardo

There are times when external circumstances can overwhelm us, and we do things we never thought. If you’re not aware that this can happen, you can be seduced by evil. We need inoculations against our own potential for evil. We have to acknowledge it. Then we can change it.

Philip Zimbardo

Careers in virtually all academic disciplines are fostered by being a superstar who knows more about one subject than anyone else in the world.

Philip Zimbardo

Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic.

Philip Zimbardo

Many cults start off with high ideals that get corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry and dominate and control members’ lives. No group with high ideals starts off as a ‘cult’; they become one when their errant ways are exposed.

Philip Zimbardo