Quotes & Sayings About Past Behavior

Whatever behavior you've experienced from people in the past, expect them to do it again and again and again. — Merrill Markoe

The past doesn't define you, your present does. It's okay to create a vision of the future because it affects your behavior in the "now," but don't dwell on past mistakes. Learn from them and focus those lessons in the moment. That's where change can really happen. — Jillian Michaels

The ancients believed in Fate because they recognized how hard it is for anyone to change anything. The pull of past and future is so strong that the present is crushed by it. We lie helpless in the force of patterns inherited and patterns re-enacted by our own behavior. The burden is intolerable. — Jeanette Winterson

The fear of climatic catastrophes is an ancient one and not unlike our fear of strangers. In the past, people believed that the climate almost always changes for the worse, and only rarely for the better - God's punishment for sinful behavior. — Hans Von Storch

They say past performance is indicative of future behavior. If there was any truth to that statement, then I knew I had to be careful of the choices I made. My decisions were much more crucial now, as they affected the entire human population. One wrong move, and I could possibly wipe out the world. That was one thing I definitely didn't want on my shoulders. — Christine Gabriel

If you are innately skeptical of other people's motives, then no amount of good behavior in the past will ever truly convince you that they are not just about to disappoint you. Suspicion is a permanent condition. — Marcus Buckingham

We believe this sharing behavior extended to sex as well. A great deal of research from primatology, anthropology, anatomy, and psychology points to the same fundamental conclusion: human beings and our hominid ancestors have spent almost all of the past few million years or so in small, intimate bands in which most adults had several sexual relationships at any given time. This approach to sexuality probably persisted until the rise of agriculture and private property no more than ten thousand years ago. In addition to voluminous scientific evidence, many explorers, missionaries, and anthropologists support this view, having penned accounts rich with tales of orgiastic rituals, unflinching mate sharing, and an open sexuality unencumbered by guilt or shame. — Christopher Ryan

The human experience can almost be summed up in the observation that, whereas all decisions are of the past, all decisions are about the future. The image of the future, therefore, is the key to all choice-oriented behavior. The character and quality of the images of the future which prevail in a society is therefore the most important clue to its overall dynamics. — Kenneth E. Boulding

9. How can we tell if a politician is telling the truth? Is there a way to know for sure? You may remember the old joke: "How do you know if a politician is lying? If he's moving his lips." It's not that funny anymore, is it? Obviously, there is no certain way to know at the moment something is said. But remember this: past performance serves to reveal future behavior. A person who has exhibited a pattern of lying is a liar. — Andy Andrews

The assumption that things which have been conjured in the past will always be conjured in the guiding principle not of rational but of animal behavior. — C.S. Lewis

I need everyone to love me. My feelings of inadequacy and lack of parental attachment have made me one of those sick bitches who can't tolerate being ignored. My parents say all the right things when they are pretending to listen to me. But the truth is, they are more like cats. They accidentally had a litter of kittens, and then emotionally moved on to whatever ball of yarn rolled past their line of sight. When self-obsessed people breed, they make empty people like me who spend the rest of their time on earth trying to gain the love and approval they didn't get as children. This doesn't excuse my behavior. It's just to say, if my parents had actually noticed me, I probably wouldn't care so much about whether everyone else on the planet adored me. Unfortunately, I'm a bottomless pit of need. — Jenny Mollen

Behavior isn't something someone "has." Rather, it emerges from the interaction of a person's biology, past experiences, and immediate context. — L. Todd Rose

my past behavior need not define who I was, am, and could be. — Ken

In particular, what seems special about humans is our desire and ability to understand what other people think and feel. Called "theory of mind," or "ToM," this ability gives humans a remarkable power to make sense of other people's past behavior and to predict how their behavior will unfold given their present or future circumstances. — Leonard Mlodinow

People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason in a way that animals can't do. — Gretchen Rubin

It galls me that seeking out the seedy, the sordid, the sexual, and the deviant is the expected (if not altogether acceptable) behavior of male writers; it would surely benefit me, as a writer, if I had the courage to seek out more of the seedy, the sordid, the sexual, and the deviant myself. But women who seek out such things are made to feel ashamed, or else they sound stridently ridiculous in defending themselves
as if they're bragging ... Yet there are subjects that remain off-limits for women writers. It's not unlike that dichotomy which exists regarding one's sexual past: it is permissible, even attractive, for a man to have had one, but if a woman has had a sexual past, she'd better keep quiet about it. — John Irving

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 G. Zimbardo

Humans have continued to evolve quite a lot over the past ten thousand years, and certainly over 100 thousand. Sure, our biology affects our behavior. But it's unlikely that humans' early evolution is deeply relevant to contemporary psychological questions about dating or the willpower to complete a dissertation. — Annalee Newitz

Guilt is not merely a concern with the past; it is a present-moment immobilization about a past event. And the degree of immobilization can run from mild upset to severe depression. If you are simply learning from your past, and vowing to avoid the repetition of some specific behavior, this is not guilt. You experience guilt only when you are prevented from taking action now as a result of having behaved in a certain way previously. Learning from your mistakes is healthy and a necessary part of growth. Guilt is unhealthy because you are ineffectively using up your energy in the present feeling hurt, upset and depressed about a historical happening. And it's futile as well as unhealthy. No amount of guilt can ever undo anything. — Wayne W. Dyer

To me, the conclusion that the public has the ultimate responsibility for the behavior of even the biggest businesses is empowering and hopeful, rather than disappointing. My conclusion is not a moralistic one about who is right or wrong, admirable or selfish, a good guy or a bad guy. My conclusion is instead a prediction, based on what I have seen happening in the past. Businesses have changed when the public came to expect and require different behavior, to reward businesses for behavior that the public wanted, and to make things difficult for businesses practicing behaviors that the public didn't want. I predict that in the future, just as in the past, changes in public attitudes will be essential for changes in businesses' environmental practices. — Jared Diamond

In each case, the relative cost of postponing the purchase for buyer and seller determines the intensity of competition between the [past and future] selves of the seller. If the buyer has a lower cost of postponing the purchase (delay, making do with an interior model) than the seller (inventory, staff salaries) the buyer has the bargaining power. — Rakesh V. Vohra

The human brain works by identifying patterns. It uses information from the past to understand what is happening in the present and to anticipate the future. This strategy works elegantly in most situations. But we inevitably see patterns where they don't exist. In other words, we are slow to recognize exceptions. There is also the peer-pressure factor. All of us have been in situations that looked ominous, and they almost always turn out to be innocuous. If we behave otherwise, we risk social embarrassment by overreacting. So we err on the side of underreacting. — Amanda Ripley

Life does have its twists and turns, and that certainly is true. However, one can predict the future with some degree of accuracy based on one's own knowledge of past events. And rare events do occur , but it is their lack of repetition that makes them rare.
I cannot alter the past, but the future is very much in my hands
I find that memories, especially from one's childhood, very often do not live up to the realities
Does anyone truly understand females? the more I am in their company the less i know. Their behavior is the opposite of everything in the natural order and flies in the face of logic.
Oh, I can see you are enjoying yourself. You have my heart, and now you will toy with it
She did believe that two souls could come together, so that the one would know if something had happened to the other despite distance or war.
The only way to get through life's rough spots is to laugh whenever possible — Mary Lydon Simonsen

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. — Joe Navarro

It's time to let go of the idea that you somehow deserve pain or punishment for your past choices. You don't have to keep reliving them and hurting yourself with it. Torturing yourself doesn't help you or anyone else. It doesn't change anything that happened before, and it doesn't teach you anything in the now. True growth is making better choices in the present because you learned from your past behavior. Redemption is not measured by how much you suffer; it's measured by how much you've grown from who you used to be. — Emily Maroutian

If you accept learning as a dominant determination of your behavior, then all of a sudden you're open to the idea that, for instance, there are other people who are more educated than you about the environment, who you will learn from. It's kind of like you don't even have to believe that you know anything about the environment, but you do have to understand that your behavior has been determined by learning in the past. — Greg Graffin

This is another lesson from the transformative movements of the past: all of them understood that the process of shifting cultural values - though somewhat ephemeral and difficult to quantify - was central to their work. And so they dreamed in public, showed humanity a better version of itself, modeled different values in their own behavior, and in the process liberated the political imagination and rapidly altered the sense of what was possible. — Naomi Klein

Well-meaning, decent people will condemn the behavior of a Ted Bundy, while they're walking past a magazine rack full of the very kinds of things that send young kids down the road to be Ted Bundys. — Ted Bundy

In Hull's view, all learning involves the reduction of basic drives (like hunger, thirst, sex, or pain), and current behavior is therefore a product of drive reduction in the past. That is, what we do today in a certain situation is a function of what we did in the past that was successful in reducing drives in similar situations. This is essentially a psychological version of the philosophical position known as hedonism, the idea that we live our lives in such a way as to seek pleasure and avoid pain. — Joseph E. Ledoux

The sex drive is one of the most fundamental human urges, and throughout history, there have been laws regulating what is considered acceptable sexual behavior. In the past century, the law has had trouble keeping up with changing social and moral standards. — Terry Gross

Your desire or beliefs will literally be reaching back into time, teaching the nerves new tricks. Definite reorganizations in that past will occur in your present, allowing you to behave in entirely new fashions. Learned behavior therefore alters not only present and future but also past conduct. — Jane Roberts

Myrnin froze, staring at her. He really was amazing, she thought; when he had that light in his eyes, it was possible to see past the crazy behavior and clothing chaos and recognize him as just ... beautiful. The longing in his face was breathtaking. — Rachel Caine

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means that you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back. — Anne Lamott

Well, for one thing, about whether you'll make a good husband," she snapped back, finally goaded into anger.
He drew back. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Your past behavior, to start with," she replied, narrowing her eyes. "You haven't exactly been the
model of Christian rectitude."
"This, coming from the woman who ordered me to strip off my clothing earlier this afternoon?" he
taunted.
"Don't be ugly," she said in a low voice.
"Don't push my temper."

-Michael Fielding and Francesca Bridgerton — Julia Quinn

I've heard so many people, particularly people of faith, say they could look past his wrongdoings. When they're pressed further, the reply is always some variation of "He doesn't mean what he says," "It's just to get a rise out of people," or "It's all for show." When you turn a blind eye and a deaf ear and say nothing, you are in fact saying everything. You are telling others you approve of immorality and injustice. You are telling them you support the marginalization and vilification of those who are different from you. You are telling them that fear reigns supreme and that you will tolerate nefarious behavior. As President John F. Kennedy said in a speech: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality."

- Amy Erickson — Erin Passons

Similarly, if a dog barks annoyingly to be let into the house from the yard and the owner usually eventually caves in, the first time the owner ignores the dog's barking the behavior won't stop right away. The dog will try harder and bark more. How hard he tries depends on how much he's had to bark to get his way in the past. The existence of the extinction burst means that when we address a bad behavior by removing the reward, we have to be ready to endure a temporary worsening of the behavior. — Sophia Yin

At first, like a lot of trauma survivors, I was impatient and wanted immediate results. Once I caught myself in this behavior, I realized that it takes consistent commitment to heal patterns. After three or four months, I noticed a huge positive shift within myself. I felt a new level of happiness and contentment that I hadn't even known existed. I finally understood how my old trauma patterns had attracted drama in my present life. once I saw this dynamic, I made a conscious decision to "Drama Detox," and the patterns faded away. — Doreen Virtue

A genuine apology focuses on the feelings of the other rather than on how the one who is apologizing is going to benefit in the end. It seeks to acknowledge full responsibility for an act, and does not use self-serving language to justify the behavior of the person asking forgiveness. A sincere apology does not seek to erase what was done. No amount of words can undo past wrongs. Nothing can ever reverse injustices committed against others. But an apology pronounced in the context of horrible acts has the potential for transformation. It clears or 'settles' the air in order to begin reconstructing the broken connections between two human beings. — Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela

You can tend to a garden every day for 20, 30 or 40 years. But if one day you stop giving it loving attention and care it will rapidly deteriorate. Weeds will start to grow, and in a relatively short period of time the garden will become a jungle. On the other hand, it is much easier to turn things around and start cultivating the garden again if it has flourished in the past. The same is true with the human mind and respectively the actions we take every day. If we cultivate our life with dedication, positive thinking, and consistent actions, it will be much easier to turn away from destructive behavior, however far we stray away from our original course. — Gudjon Bergmann

Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior. — Logan Pearsall Smith

It is still open for me, as well as you, to regulate my behavior, by my experience of past events. — David Hume

I felt that I ostracized myself by my behavior, by the past, by living with all the regrets of my mistakes, that I sort of wore a hair shirt and beat myself up most of the day thinking and regretting why did I make such a mistake? Why have I made so many mistakes? — Sarah Ferguson

SETH said: The natural person is to be found, now, not in the past or in the present, but beneath layers and layers of official beliefs, so you are dealing with an archeology of beliefs to find the person who creates beliefs to begin with. As I have said often, evidence of clairvoyance, telepathy, or whatever, are not eccentric, isolated instances occurring in man's experience, but are representative of natural patterns of everyday behavior that become invisible in your world because of the official picture of behavior and reality. — Jane Roberts

I believe that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior when it comes to religious fanaticism. — Sam Brower

Nothing predicts future behavior as much as past impunity. — Carol Tavris

Isn't Santa just a stand in for the society that has locked them up for formative years? Something that watches and judges, telling them that they got what they deserved based on their behavior? Surely they have to have noticed that Saint Nick, like the judicial system itself, tends to look more favorably upon rich children. He is fat, white, past middle age, and holds all the cards. — Thomm Quackenbush

In behaviorism, an infant's talents and abilities didn't matter because there was no such thing as a talent or an ability. Watson had banned them from psychology, together with other contents of the mind, such as ideas, beliefs, desires, and feelings. They were subjective and unmeasurable, he said, and unfit for science, which studies only objective and measurable things. To a behaviorist, the only legitimate topic for psychology is overt behavior and how it is controlled by the present and past environment. (There is an old joke in psychology: What does a behaviorist say after making love? "It was good for you; how was it for me?") — Steven Pinker

The Russian general is used to such supplicant behavior. During the war, he ordered his troops to shoot any of their comrades who ran from the Germans, and any Russian village that was thought to have collaborated with the Nazis was burned to the ground. Zhukov is so feared that other Russian generals have been known to tremble in his presence. Patton does not tremble. "He was in full dress uniform much like comic opera and covered in medals," Patton later wrote to Beatrice of Zhukov. "He is short, rather fat and has a prehensile chin like an ape but good blue eyes." As Russian tanks rolled past the reviewing stand, Patton noticed Zhukov gloating over the new Soviet IS-3 model — Bill O'Reilly

One may take the line that metaphorical devices are inevitable in the early stages of any science and that although we may look with amusement today upon the "essences," "forces," "phlogistons," and "ethers," of the science of yesterday, these nevertheless were essential to the historical process. It would be difficult to prove or disprove this. However, if we have learned anything about the nature of scientific thinking, if mathematical and logical researches have improved our capacity to represent and analyze empirical data, it is possible that we can avoid some of the mistakes of adolescence. Whether Freud could have done so is past demonstrating, but whether we need similar constructs in the future prosecution of a science of behavior is a question worth considering. — B.F. Skinner

My brain has always been my enemy, and I've spent much of the past decade warring against it, with therapy and razor blades and bad behavior, with precision-guided prescriptions that targeted specific regions. — Pete Wentz

The Church's roots are in the teaching of the apostles, the authentic witnesses of Christ, but she looks to the future, she has the firm consciousness of being sent - sent by Jesus - of being missionary, bearing the name of Jesus by her prayer, proclaiming it and testifying to it. A Church that is closed in on herself and in the past, a Church that only sees the little rules of behavior, of attitude, is a Church that betrays her own identity; a closed Church betrays her own identity! Then, let us rediscover today all the beauty and responsibility of being the Church apostolic! And remember this: the Church is apostolic because we pray - our first duty - and because we proclaim the Gospel by our life and by our words. — Pope Francis

Human beings, whatever their backgrounds, are more open than we think, that their behavior cannot be confidently predicted from their past, that we are all creatures vulnerable to new thoughts, new attitudes.
And while such vulnerability creates all sorts of possibilities, both good and bad, its very existence is exciting. It means that no human being should be written off, no change in thinking deemed impossible. — Howard Zinn

Trauma-related structural dissociation should be distinguished from more ubiquitous phenomena that are often termed dissociation, but likely have a different underlying process. Over the past several decades the original meaning of dissociation has been quite extended by the addition of other phenomena not typically considered to be dissociative. These include alterations in consciousness such as absorption, daydreaming, imaginative involvement, altered time sense, trance-like behavior, and "highway hypnosis" — Onno Van Der Hart

Human mind & news Media work on the same principle: Unsatisfied with the past; worried about future; ignorant about the present moment. — Saurabh Sharma

Nelson and Winter had spent more than a decade examining how companies work, trudging through swamps of data before arriving at their central conclusion: "Much of firm behavior," they wrote, is best "understood as a reflection of general habits and strategic orientations coming from the firm's past," rather than "the result of a detailed survey of the remote twigs of the decision tree."6.15 — Charles Duhigg

In just 200 tweets we can assess and identify 52 different personality traits of a customer. We ran an analysis over 500,000 people and we really nailed this. Think of providing this powerful insight to a retailer. We can see what they value, not just what they are buying. We have found a 40-45% increase in sales when you recommend upsales based on values instead of past buying behavior. — Sandy Carter

But I should note, for all my resistance to organized religion, that I don't believe Charlie could have quit drinking without it. It provided him with a way to structure his behavior, and a way to explain that behavior, both past and present, to himself. Perhaps fiction has, for me, served a similar purpose
what is a narrative arc if not the imposition of order on disparate events?
and perhaps it is my avid reading that has been my faith all along. — Curtis Sittenfeld

Many people are reluctant to show mercy because they don't understand the difference between trust and forgiveness.
Forgiveness is letting go of the past. Trust has to do with future behavior. — Rick Warren

The more attention you give to the past, the more you energize it, and the more likely you are to make a "self" out of it. Don't misunderstand: Attention is essential, but not to the past as past. Give attention to the present; give attention to your behavior, to your reactions, moods, thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires as they occur in the present. There's the past in you. If you can be present enough to watch all those things, not critically or analytically but nonjudgmentally, then you are dealing with the past and dissolving it through the power of your presence. You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You find yourself by coming into the present. — Eckhart Tolle

You should prepare to follow the program for 90 days. Why? Because behavioral research indicates that it takes 90 days to prepare for change, build a new behavior, become confident in the face of high-risk triggers, and move past the likelihood of relapse. Brain research also suggests that it takes a few months of practicing a new behavior to create permanent change. — John C. Norcross

Unlike fuel-economy standards, the most common method of reducing demand for oil over the past thirty years, a gas tax doesn't tell people what kind of car to drive. It simply raises the price of gasoline and lets people adjust their behavior accordingly. — James Surowiecki

Many people look at their past and bemoan their mistakes. Those errors in judgment, behavior, hurting others, and the wrong decisions may be what consumes them now. It does not have to be that way, for recovering from a traumatic situation is all a matter of how we think about what happened. It is not so much about what happened to us as what we make of the circumstance. — David W. Earle

A "race to innocence" is what occurs when individuals assume that they are innocent of complicity in structures of domination and oppression.25 This concept captures the understandable assumption made by new immigrants or children of recent immigrants to any country. They cannot be responsible, they assume, for what occurred in their adopted country's past. Neither are those who are already citizens guilty, even if they are descendants of slave owners, Indian killers, or Andrew Jackson himself. Yet, in a settler society that has not come to terms with its past, whatever historical trauma was entailed in settling the land affects the assumptions and behavior of living generations at any given time, including immigrants and the children of recent immigrants. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Witness your thoughts, moods, and behaviors. They represent your memories of the past, and by witnessing them in the present, you liberate yourself from the past. — Deepak Chopra

A lot of human behavior was really acting out our responses to dangers long past. — Orson Scott Card

According to John Shook, "'Go see, ask why, show respect' is the way we turn the philosophy of scientific empiricism into actual behavior." It's an expression he originally learned from Fujio Cho (past president and chairman of Toyota). In an LEI blog, Shook went on to say, "We go observe what is really happening (at the Gemba where the work takes place), while showing respect for the people involved, especially the people who do the real value-creating work of the business. — Michael Bremer

That is, whether or not an act is considered deviant depends upon how it is labeled (defined) by other people. For example, in a well-known study of jazz musicians, Becker (1963) found marijuana use to be considered normal by the musicians, but labeled as illegal, deviant behavior by the larger society, and subject to sanctions like arrest, fines, and jail terms. Although labeling theory pertained to deviance generally, several studies focused on the mental patient experience in which persons once treated for mental illness found it difficult to shed the label of "former mental patient" even if the experience was in the past and the person supposedly cured (Scheff [1966] 1999). — William C. Cockerham

As financial markets continue to broaden and deepen, the behavior of asset prices will play an important role in the formulation of monetary policy going forward, perhaps a more important role than in the past. — Timothy Geithner

Past misdeeds must only serve as a reference point in calm conversation about lessons learned or actions that taught us to behave better. They should never be bantered about with sarcasm, anger, or nastiness. — Cathy Burnham Martin

However, if Sir Launcelot of the Lake failed now and then in his behavior, who is there in the world shall say, 'I never fell into error'? And if he more than once offended, who is there shall have hardihood to say, 'I never committed offence'? — Howard Pyle

The advances of biology during the past 20 years have been breathtaking, particularly in cracking the mystery of heredity. Nevertheless, the greatest and most difficult problems still lie ahead. The discoveries of the 1970's about the chemical roots of memory in nerve cells or the basis of learning, about the complex behavior of man and animals, the nature of growth, development, disease and aging will be at least as fundamental and spectacular as those of the recent past. — H. Bentley Glass

You're holding your future self responsible for something your past self didn't know anything about. You can't judge your past behavior because of the way things turned out. You had no way of knowing what would happen next. It's only because you do know that you judge your past self. — E.K. Blair

I'll tell you all about it, but let's eat first. I've had nothing to eat. Although I was offered some raw squirrel. Canned pudding, that's what I want. I've been dreaming about it."
She hauled out a can and feverishly worked the can opener. She didn't wait for a dish or spoon, but thrust her hand in and scooped some into her mouth. Then she stood transfixed, overwhelmed by the wonderful sweetness of it.
She was crying when she said, "I'm sorry, I've forgotten how to be polite. I'll get you guys your own can."
Sam hobbled over and scooped some pudding of his own, following her lead. "I'm way past polite myself," he said, although she could see he was a little appalled by her wolfish behavior. She decided then that she liked him. — Michael Grant

I challenged myself to write/direct a romantic comedy. People trash talk the rom com, but it's one of the oldest cinematic genres, with stellar origins like Twentieth Century and Trouble in Paradise. I think as audiences lost their innocence, the genre lost its suspense. To create suspense, you need obstacles, so I gave my couple an obstacle that very few people ever overcome: their own behavior and their past. — Leslye Headland

The moment that the topic of the pre-European African past is raised, many individuals are concerned for various reasons to know about the existence of African "civilizations." Mainly, this stems from a desire to make comparisons with European "civilizations." This is not the context in which to evaluate the so-called civilizations of Europe. It is enough to note the behavior of European capitalists from the epoch of slavery through colonialism, fascism, and genocidal wars in Asia and Africa. Such barbarism causes suspicion to attach to the use of the word "civilization" to describe Western Europe and North America. — Walter Rodney

Americans, like people everywhere, are in thrall to their visions of the past, rarely realizing the extent to which their understanding of history shapes behavior in the here and now. Historical understanding defines people's very sense of what is thinkable and achievable. As a result, many have lost the ability to imagine a world that is substantially different from and better than what exists today. — Oliver Stone

Fear is the culprit that robs us of our greatest lives. And although it's mostly made up or a learned behavior from our past, almost everybody I've ever met in my life struggles with fear. — Debbie Ford

If bankers become overly conservative in response to past lending mistakes - or if examiners force such behavior - it will hurt bankers' own long-term interests and the economy in general. — Ben Bernanke

When you are angry, your blood pressure rises, you forget the basic norms of good behavior, you start shouting, you even use foul language and dig out all the past corpses of incidents afresh to ruin your future. So, choose to remain peaceful and stable --- whatever the situation. — Sanchita Pandey

Change Your Behavior towards Your Mother If your mother is still living and you have contact with her, you need to change the way you respond to her. To do that, you have to take charge of your own emotions about the subject. You can't let her thoughtlessness rule your relationship with her. Instead, stand up for yourself. You can do it in a gentle way, but however you do it, you need to place the burden of the past directly on your mother's shoulders. — J.L. Anderson

When we allow a preconception to rule our behavior, we are actually allowing our past to control our present and future. — Ilchi Lee

Is it really over?" Kurlansky lamented over the dry-docked Massachusetts cod fishermen at the conclusion of his moving, epic book. "Are these the last gatherers of food from the wild to be phased out? Is this the last of wild food? Is our last physical tie to untamed nature to become an obscure delicacy like the occasional pheasant?"
These words stayed with me over the years to come. But histories of environmental wrong doing have a strange way of putting traumatic events in the past, sealing off bad human behavior of former times from the unwritten pages of the present and the future. — Paul Greenberg

Past behavior is the most reliable predictor of future behavior. — Gordon Livingston

Impossible as it seemed, many of these older ladies, who never stirred from the house past sunset, had either not heard the tales of his behavior two nights ago or had not believed them.
The ones who did obviously has enough manners, or at least enough sense, to keep quiet in the presence of his mother. Had anyone said anything outright, his mother would probably have no qualms about asking the offender to choose a weapon and name her second. — Kate Dolan

Forgiveness is not the misguided act of condoning irresponsible, hurtful behavior. Nor is it a superficial turning of the other cheek that leaves us feeling victimized and martyred. Rather, it is the finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present, free of contamination from the past. — Joan Z. Borysenko

It is a remarkable feat to be able to see past the inhumanity of the behavior and recognize the humanity of the person committing the atrocious acts. This is not weakness. This is heroic strength, the noblest strength of the human spirit. — Desmond Tutu

Introspection makes our conscious motives and strategies transparent to us, while we have no sure means of deciphering them in others. Yet we never genuinely know our true selves. We remain largely ignorant of the actual unconscious determinants of our behavior, and therefore we cannot accurately predict what our behavior will be in circumstances beyond the safety zone of our past experience. The Greek motto "Know thyself," when applied to the minute details of our behavior, remains an inaccessible ideal. Our "self" is just a database that gets filled in through our social experiences, in the same format with which we attempt to understand other minds, and therefore it is just as likely to include glaring gaps, misunderstandings, and delusions. — Stanislas Dehaene

If you're a Christian, here's the good news: who you really are has nothing to do with you - how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior, your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on. Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ's accomplishment, not yours; His strength, not yours; His performance, not yours; His victory, not yours. — Tullian Tchividjian

Leaders can choose to grow and change, but generally the most powerful predictor of future performance is past behavior. Evaluate them realistically. — Lee Ellis

Your desires will source you with the inspiration to release your outdated beliefs and let go of whatever behavior is keeping you stuck in the past. — Debbie Ford

This isn't a matter for the eyes, it is a matter for the heart. Many signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American people. I trust this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory, they become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going. So a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future. When I'm depressed, I ascribe our behavior to stupidity, the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture. — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

Dear five-year-old, What the fuck is wrong with you? Normal children don't have dead imaginary friends. Normal children don't pick open every single one of their chicken pox scabs and then stand naked and bleeding in the darkened doorway to their bedroom until someone walks past and asks what they are doing. Furthermore, normal children don't respond by saying, "I wanted to know what all my blood would look like." Normal children also don't watch their parents sleep from the corner of the room. Mom was really scarred by The Exorcist when she was younger, and she doesn't know how to cope with your increasingly creepy behavior. Please stop. Please, please stop. — Allie Brosh

I lie awake in bed until way past midnight, fervently hoping Ky is going make an appearance at any moment to explain his behavior. But as the clock chimes two, I have no choice but to face facts.
He isn't coming.
And it feels ominous.
Like the winds are changing, and destiny is altering.
His absence is more than telling.
It has a finality to it that scares me half to death. — Siobhan Davis

Do what he will, he [the profane man] is an inheritor. He cannot utterly abolish his past, since he himself is a product of his past. He forms himself by a series of denials and refusals, but he continues to be haunted by the realities that he has refused and denied. To acquire a world of his own, he has desacralized the world in which his ancestors lived; but to do so he has been obliged to adopt an earlier type of behavior, and that behavior is still emotionally present in him, in one form or another, ready to be reactualized in his deepest being. — Mircea Eliade