36 Quotes by Martha Stout

If, instead, you find yourself often pitying someone who consistently hurts you or other people, and who actively campaigns for your sympathy, the chances are close to 100 percent that you are dealing with a sociopath.

Sociopaths sometimes use their hypochondriasis as a strategy to get out of doing work. One moment they are fine, but then it is time to pay the bills or look for a job or help a friend move to a new apartment, and suddenly they have chest pains or a limp. And imaginary medical concerns and infirmities often secure special treatment, such as the one last chair in an overcrowded room.

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s. His hair was perfect.

The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.

Sociopathy is the inability to process emotional experience, including love and caring, except when such experience can be calculated as a coldly intellectual task.

Conscience is the still small voice that has been trying since the infancy of our species to tell us that we are evolutionarily, emotionally, and spiritually One, and that if we seek peace and happiness, we must behave that way.

Sociopaths love power. They love winning. If you take loving kindness out of the human brain, there’s not much left except the will to win.

One way or another, a life without conscience is a failed life.

If courage is acting according to one’s conscience despite pain or fear, then strength is the ability to keep conscience awake and in force despite the demands of authorities to do otherwise.