Quotes & Sayings About Worst Behavior

Criminal court is where bad people are on their best behavior. It's much more dangerous for lawyers and judges in family court, where good people are at their worst. — Richard Dooling

Daisy glanced up into her husband's sparkling eyes. "You're being scandalous, Mr. Swift," she whispered. "This is nothing," Matthew replied in an undertone, his expression soft with love. "I'm saving my worst behavior for tonight. — Lisa Kleypas

Imagine a flock of pigeons in a corn field. Imagine that ninety-nine of them, instead of pecking the corn they need and using it as they need it, start to collect all they can into one big heap. Imagine that they do not leave much corn for themselves, but save this big heap of corn on behalf of the vilest and worst in their flock. Imagine that they all sit in a circle and watch this one pigeon, who squanders and wastes this wealth. And then imagine that they rush at a weak pigeon who is the most hungry among them who darest to take one grain from the heap without permission, and they punish him. If you can imagine this, then you can understand the day-to-day behavior of mankind. - WILLIAM PALEY — Leo Tolstoy

The physical ego serves as its own worst enemy when, by delusive material behavior, it eclipses its true nature as the ever blessed soul. — Paramahansa Yogananda

Obviously, as an adult I realize this girl-on-girl sabotage is the third worst kind of female behavior, right behind saying "like" all the time and leaving your baby in a dumpster. I'm proud to say I would never sabotage a fellow female like that now. — Tina Fey

astonishing number of senior leaders are systemically incapable of identifying their organization's most glaring and dangerous shortcomings. This is not a function of stupidity, but rather stems from two routine pressures that constrain everybody's thinking and behavior. The first is comprised of cognitive biases, such as mirror imaging, anchoring, and confirmation bias. These unconscious motivations on decision-making under uncertain conditions make it inherently difficult to evaluate one's own judgments and actions. As David Dunning, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, has shown in countless environments, people who are highly incompetent in terms of their skills or knowledge are also terrible judges of their own performance. For example, people who perform the worst on pop quizzes also have the widest variance between how they thought they performed and the actual score that they earned.22 — Micah Zenko

winning or losing an agonist encounter has a dramatic impact on future aggressive behavior. Winners are more likely to initiate attacks against unknown opponents, whereas losers are more circumspect and likely to retreat from unfamiliar conspecifics, adopting an opportunistic strategy, picking and choosing their fights. In the worst case scenario, animals socially subjugated by constant threat and attack from dominant conspecifics develop a submissive phenotype, showing little or no aggressive behavior, essentially eliminating themselves from the gene pool. — Randy J. Nelson

We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior. — Graydon Carter

I hate being on my best behavior. It brings out the absolute worst in me. — Colleen McCullough

My dad once said that in criminal law you see terrible people on their best behavior; in family law you see great people on their worst behavior. — Laura Wasser

Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don't represent the best of America, they represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior. — George W. Bush

The vision of the left, full of envy and resentment, takes its worst toll on those at the bottom - whether black or white - who find in that paranoid vision an excuse for counterproductive and ultimately self-destructive attitudes and behavior. — Thomas Sowell

The bottom line on the declaration, 'This is part of our culture,' is this: At its best, this is a choice made with little or no critical thinking about future results. At its worst, it is merely an excuse to do what one wants to do. It is selfish, leaderless, pack behavior with unconsidered consequences that ultimately destroy families, neighborhoods, cities, and before you know it, generations. — Andy Andrews

The worst tragedy of sin isn't that it produced bad behavior, but that it produced the idea that bad behavior is strong enough to deflect love. — D.R. Silva

The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that's why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world. — Michelle Alexander

Most of us save our best behavior for those whom we barely know and show our worst side to those we know the best. — Sheila Wray Gregoire

We have seen moral and religious leaders,
men who claim to be followers of Jesus,
fall into disgrace in the eyes of God and man, and worst of all we have seen the Gospel of Jesus Christ and twisted and distorted it by false teachers to accommodate the destructive morals and secular behavior of these times. — Billy Graham

The worst thing you can do for your loved one caught in alcoholism or addiction is to help the person continue in the deception that he or she is OK. Your best course of action is to speak the truth in love (see Eph. 4:15) and don't allow him or her to escape the consequences of wrong behavior. — Neil T. Anderson

Through it all, despite it all, Eddie privately adored his old man, because sons will adore their fathers through even the worst behavior. It is how they learn devotion. Before he can devote himself to God or a woman, a boy will devote himself to his father, even foolishly, even beyond explanation. — Mitch Albom

In the criminal justice system you see the worst people on their best behavior, unlike the civil system, where the best people behave at their worst. — Edna Buchanan

At its best, entertainment is going to be a subjective thing that can't win for everyone, while at worst, a particular game just becomes a random symbol for petty tribal behavior. — John Carmack

The worst condition of humans is when they lose knowledge and control of themselves. — Michel De Montaigne

'Little Night' has layers of meaning. There's something enchanted about night. All those heavenly bodies, shooting stars, the crescent moon, celestial phenomenon. Owls fly at night, and first kisses happen. Night is romantic. Alternately, darkness hides the worst of human behavior. — Luanne Rice

Don't let the worst people you know dictate your behavior. — Gail Simone

That was what they did with themselves, those two Gracelings, along with a small band of friends: They stirred up trouble on a serious scale - bribery, coercion, sabotage, organized rebellion - all directed at stopping the worst behavior of the world's most seriously corrupt kings. — Kristin Cashore

There's definitely evidence that capitalism at its most ruthless rewards psychopathic behavior. When you look at the worst corners of the American health insurance industry or the sub-prime banking market, it really feels like the more psychopathically someone behaves, the more it's rewarded. — Jon Ronson

You could go church and you could describe your worst behavior, your worst self, and despite your worst behavior you would be forgiven and then redeemed and then accepted back into the community through communion. So you didn't have to carry this burden your entire life. Once a week you went someplace you went someplace where you could really look terrible and be loved despite how terrible you were. — Chuck Palahniuk

Pretending that we know more than we really do is one big reason we're not as successful as we should be. It's probably the worst self-limiting behavior that we have. — Dan Waldschmidt

One of the worst things about breaking the law is that it puts one at odds with an indeterminate number of other people. This is among the many corrosive effects of having unjust laws: They tempt peaceful and (otherwise) honest people to lie so as to avoid being punished for behavior that is ethically blameless. — Sam Harris

Tragedy massages the human ego even as comedy deflates it ... Tragedy pits us against large foes and the trip wire is our own character ... In comedy we fall afoul of one another. Comedy depends on social life, on our behavior in groups. In tragedy you can observe one human against the gods. In comedy it's one human versus other humans and often one man (or woman if I'm writing it) against her own worst impulses. — Rita Mae Brown

Prudence asked further, "Do you not still carry some of the baggage from the place you escaped?" "Yes, but against my will. I still have within me some of the carnal thoughts that all my countrymen, as well as myself, were delighted with. Now all those things cause me to grieve. If I could master my own heart, I would choose never to think of those things again, but when I try only to think about those things that are best, those things that are the worst creep back into my mind and behavior."83 — John Bunyan

Meet me at your best behavior,
Meet me at your worst,
For there will be no stone left unturned,
Or bubble left to burst. — Death Cab For Cutie

Perhaps the greatest rudenesses of our time come not from the callousness of strangers, but from the solicitousness of intimates who believe that their frank criticisms are always welcome, and who feel free to "be themselves" with those they love, which turns out to mean being their worst selves, while saving their best behavior for strangers. — Judith Martin

The worst way to know if people would pay to use a product or if they would use it repeatedly is ask them directly. Humans are very bad at predicting their future behavior. In — Tomer Sharon

In the last few years I've become an accepted eccentric at best, and a fuckup at worst. I feel like I'll let people down if I take away the behavior they've grown accustomed to disapproving of. They try to discipline me, I refuse to be disciplined. They object, I'm objectionable. We all know exactly what to do. — Carrie Fisher

The least dignified thing that can happen to a man is to be murdered. If he dies in his sleep he gets a respectful obituary and perhaps a smiling portrait; it is how we all want to be remembered. But murder is the great exposer: here is the victim in his torn underwear, face down on the floor, unpaid bills on his dresser, a meager shopping list, some loose change, and worst of all the fact that he is alone. Investigation reveals what he did that day - it all matters - his habits are examined, his behavior scrutinized, his trunks rifled, and a balance sheet is drawn up at the hospital giving the contents of his stomach. Dying, the last private act we perform, is made public: the murder victim has no secrets. — Paul Theroux

In a single moment, we witnessed the worst of human behavior. And in the next, the very best of human behavior. And even more, we witnessed the tremendous spirit of Americans. — Jane D. Hull

Our faith institutions have the best product that God can offer; but we have the worst customer service imaginable. — Johnnie Dent Jr.

Here, kids celebrated whoever got away with the worst behavior while shunning anyone attempting to do the right thing. — Hugh Howey

What we all want, really, is to be loved. That craving drives our worst behavior. — Jodi Picoult

Purity of action guided Janis's behavior. If she was going to be good, she was very, very good. If she was going to be bad, she let all the stops out. Anything less than full commitment to an idea of activity was 'hypocritical', the worst adjective anyone could hurl at another. — Laura Joplin