#psychology

Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#human-nature #psychology #social-commentary #nature

But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things. ↗

— Agatha Christie

#nature

The common denominator of all jokes is a path of expectation that is diverted by an unexpected twist necessitating a complete reinterpretation of all the previous facts — the punch-line…Reinterpretation alone is insufficient. The new model must be inconsequential. For example, a portly gentleman walking toward his car slips on a banana peel and falls. If he breaks his head and blood spills out, obviously you are not going to laugh. You are going to rush to the telephone and call an ambulance. But if he simply wipes off the goo from his face, looks around him, and then gets up, you start laughing. The reason is, I suggest, because now you know it’s inconsequential, no real harm has been done. I would argue that laughter is nature’s way of signaling that "it’s a false alarm." Why is this useful from an evolutionary standpoint? I suggest that the rhythmic staccato sound of laughter evolved to inform our kin who share our genes; don’t waste your precious resources on this situation; it’s a false alarm. Laughter is nature’s OK signal. ↗

— V.S. Ramachandran

#humor #laughter #humor

No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own . . . and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing . . . is one that they can't or won't entertain. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#religion #religion

Could hell be a place where there is no self-respect? A place where people have no pride in their own existence or behavior, and thus would have none for anyone or anything else? ↗

— Neil Peart

#respect

Bakat seakan menjadi tumbal, seolah dengan mudahnya menyalahkan Si Bakat terhadap hal-hal yang tidak mereka kuasai ↗

— Wahyu Aditya

#human #inspirational #psychology #talent #art

But insight doesn't necessarily produce self-control. Sometimes you just see your destructiveness more clearly. ↗

— Keith Ablow

#insight

This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. ↗

— Sigmund Freud

#freud #irish #misquote #psychoanalysis #psychology

There is a noticeable element of the pathological in some current leftist critiques, which I tend to attribute to feelings of guilt allied to feelings of impotence. Not an attractive combination, because it results in self-hatred. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#guilt #impotence #iraq-war #leftism #pathology

We colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in. ↗

— Thomas Hardy

#morality #psychology #ethics