Carol Tavris Quotes

• History is written by the victors, but it's victims who write the memoirs.

  Carol Tavris

  Writing, Victim, Memoir

  Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson (2008). “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts”, p.253, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In the horrifying calculus of self-deception, the greater the pain we inflict on others, the greater the need to justify it to maintain our feelings of decency and self-worth.

  Carol Tavris

  Pain, Self Worth, Feelings

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• The scientific method is designed to help investigators overcome the most entrenched human cognitive habit: the confirmation bias, the tendency to notice and remember evidence that confirms our beliefs or decisions, and to ignore, dismiss, or forget evidence that is discrepant. That's why we are all inclined to stick to a hypothesis we believe in. Science is one way of forcing us, kicking and screaming if necessary, to modify our views.

  Carol Tavris

  Believe, Views, Decision

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• Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification.

  Carol Tavris

  Self, Views, People

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• Depression is not 'anger turned inward'; if anything, anger is depression turned outward. Follow the trail of anger inward, and there you will find the small, still voice of pain.

  Carol Tavris

  Pain, Voice, Inward

  Carol Tavris (2017). “Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

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• During McCarthyism, teachers feared for their jobs if they belonged to a left-wing group. Today teachers fear for their jobs if they hug a crying child. As in all moral panics, an accusation is enough to destroy a person's life. Hysteria trumps evidence.

  Carol Tavris

  Teacher, Jobs, Children

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• Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification.

  Carol Tavris

  Self, Armor, Enough

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• As in all moral panics, an accusation is enough to destroy a person's life. Hysteria trumps evidence.

  Carol Tavris

  Hysteria, Panic, Moral

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• When anger is not trampling roughshod through our nervous system, it is sitting sullenly in some unspecified internal organ. "She's got a lot of anger in her," people will say (it nestles, presumably, somewhere in the gut), or, "He's a deeply angry man" (as opposed, presumably, to a superficially angry one). If anger isn't released, it "turns inward" and metamorphoses into another creature altogether.

  Carol Tavris

  Anger, Men, Angry Man

  Carol Tavris (1984). “Anger, the misunderstood emotion”, Touchstone

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• Doubt is not the enemy of justice; overconfidence is.

  Carol Tavris

  Justice, Doubt, Enemy

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• For some of the large indignities of life, the best remedy is direct action. For the small indignities, the best remedy is a Charlie Chaplin movie. The hard part is knowing the difference.

  Carol Tavris

  Direct Action, Differences, Knowing

  Carol Tavris (1989). “Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion”, p.293, Simon and Schuster

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• Baseball lasts as long as it takes. Like life, like love, baseball exists in real time.

  Carol Tavris

  Sports, Baseball, Real

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• The second-sweetest set of three words in English is 'I don't know.'

  Carol Tavris

  Life, Three, Sweetest

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• In sports as in child rearing, marital arguments, or tantrums, the same laws of learning apply; when an emotion is encouraged and the rules permit it, it is perpetuated, not 'drained.' ... An emotion without social rules of containment and expression is like an egg without a shell: a gooey mess.

  Carol Tavris

  Sports, Children, Expression

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• Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and, as the theory would predict, they are usually denigrated for their efforts. While they are alive, they may be called 'cantankerous,' 'crazy,' 'hysterical,' 'uppity,' or 'duped.' Dead, some of them become saints and heroes, the sterling characters of history. It's a matter of proportion. One angry rebel is crazy, three is a conspiracy, 50 is a movement.

  Carol Tavris

  Crazy, Anger, Hero

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• Science is a form of arrogance control.

  Carol Tavris

  Arrogance, Form

  Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson (2008). “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts”, p.139, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Severe initiations increase a member's liking for the group.

  Carol Tavris

  Groups, Increase, Members

  Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson (2008). “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts”, p.20, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A fan without a team is like a hog without truffles - she has nothing to root for.

  Carol Tavris

  Sports, Baseball, Team

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• The individualism of American life, to our glory and despair, creates anger and encourages its release; for when everything is possible, limitations are irksome. When the desires of the self come first, the needs of others are annoying. When we think we deserve it all, reaping only a portion can enrage.

  Carol Tavris

  Thinking, Self, Despair

  Carol Tavris (1989). “Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion”, p.69, Simon and Schuster

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• No one seems to have learned, or can remember, the magic words that calm people when they are frightened or threatened: "I'm sorry; I didn't see you; are you all right?" The inability to speak these words, I observe, goes right along with a propensity for mindless insults.

  Carol Tavris

  Sorry, People, Magic

  Carol Tavris (1989). “Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion”, p.162, Simon and Schuster

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• [Sexual] fantasies, like children, are most interesting to the people who have them.

  Carol Tavris

  Sex, Children, People

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• When it comes to food, there are two large categories of eaters, those who do not worry about what they eat but should, and those who do worry about what they eat but should not.

  Carol Tavris

  Food, Two, Worry

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• The difference between the Japanese and the American is summed up in their opposite reactions to the proverb (popular in both nations), "A rolling stone gathers no moss." Epidemiologist S. Leonard Syme observes that to the Japanese, moss is exquisite and valued; a stone is enhanced by moss; hence a person who keeps moving and changing never acquires the beauty and benefits of stability. To Americans, the proverb is an admonition to keep rolling, to keep from being covered with clinging attachments.

  Carol Tavris

  Moving, Opposites, Differences

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• Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and they are usually denigrated for their efforts.

  Carol Tavris

  Effort, Challenges, Rebel

  Carol Tavris (1984). “Anger, the misunderstood emotion”, Touchstone

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• Of course, if you photograph the behavior of women and men at a particular time in history, in a particular situation, you will capture differences. But the error lies in inferring that a snapshot is a lasting picture. What women and men do at a moment in time tells us nothing about what women and men are in some unvarying sense - or about what they can be.

  Carol Tavris

  Lying, Philosophical, Men

  Carol Tavris (1993). “Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex”, Touchstone

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