Sociopath Quotes

• I'm a high-functioning sociopath, do your research.

  Benedict Cumberbatch

  Research, Psychopath, Holmes

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• Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the uniforms of killers as cat owners stroke their animals' lovely fur and forgive their claws and fangs. He'd never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest; you only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's true heart lay...cats were all about using people

  Jonathan Franzen

  Country, Using People, Heart

  Jonathan Franzen (2010). “Freedom: A Novel”, p.548, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• You'd think a sociopath assassin wouldn't have a fan following but he does

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Thinking, Fans, Doe

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• The best indicator of a sociopath serial bully is not a clinical diagnosis but the trail of devastation and destruction of lives and livelihoods surrounding this individual throughout their life.

  Tim Field

  Bullying, Devastation, Diagnosis

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• 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.

  Martha Stout

  Kindness, Winning, Brain

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• Sociopath is a word that has sort of become shorthand for psychopath and there's a distinct difference, it's interesting if you look it up. Sociopath if you look at the medical definition, the profile of a sociopath is that they are supremely intelligent people that are also pathological liars, they have no moral structure and there is one more, they have no compassion or empathy for other people.

  Cillian Murphy

  Liars, Intelligent, Compassion

  Source: www.movieweb.com

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• A sociopath can imitate emotions, where a psychopath really doesn't have that capacity. They can't fool people into thinking anything and they're usually lacking major empathy for anybody besides themselves.

  Patrick Heusinger

  Thinking, People, Empathy

  "'Jack Reacher' Villain Patrick Heusinger on Playing Opposite Tom Cruise". Interview with Harper's Bazaar, www.harpersbazaar.com. October 24, 2016.

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• A sociopath will do anything to win. Anything.

  Denzel Washington

  Winning

  "Safe House: A Conversation With Denzel Washington". Interview with Prairie Miller, newsblaze.com. February 4, 2012.

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• To learn to be charming is fairly easy - you can teach somebody to be charming and to learn human emotions - or to learn the behaviors that go with human emotions. A sociopath, a smart one, will study the way we emote, and will learn how to do that quite effectively.

  Martha Stout

  Smart, Emotion, Study

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Sociopaths are not usually physically violent. A typical sociopath never kills anybody and doesn't look like Charles Manson - they look like you and me and everybody else. You're not looking for someone who's recognizably evil or scary-looking, but rather someone who looks normal. Another lynchpin is dishonesty. Lying for the sake of lying. Lying just to see whether you can trick people. And sometimes telling larger lies to get larger effects.

  Martha Stout

  Lying, People, Evil

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The inability to experience regret is one of the diagnostic characteristics of sociopaths.

  Kathryn Schulz

  Motivation, Regret, Inspiration

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• Sociopaths are more complicated psychopaths; the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath is a sociopath is incredibly charming. There are a lot of sociopaths that are CEOs. They don't necessarily kill people but they're able to walk into a big social function and make everybody think they're the kindest, coolest, smartest, most interesting person in the room.

  Patrick Heusinger

  Thinking, Differences, People

  "'Jack Reacher' Villain Patrick Heusinger on Playing Opposite Tom Cruise". Interview with Harper's Bazaar, www.harpersbazaar.com. October 24, 2016.

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• Sociopaths are not afraid of very much, except for physical harm and dying - really primitive, basic kinds of fears. The problem with being alone for a sociopath is boredom.

  Martha Stout

  Boredom, Dying, Kind

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• In Western culture, particularly North America, a lot of rules are descriptors for sociopathy: a general acceptance of lying as long as you win, an attitude of "me first," an attitude that what it looks like is more important than what it is. This makes it much easier for a sociopath to be camouflaged in our culture.

  Martha Stout

  Attitude, Lying, Acceptance

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Being sociopath is not what most people would consider to be winning. Most of us have some kind of positive goal in mind when we think of winning. A sociopath thinks in terms of successfully manipulating someone into doing something that he or she would not have done otherwise. That can be a small thing or a tremendous thing, but the point for the sociopath is to win, to make sure that this person does what they're trying to coerce him or her into doing. It can be as disgusting and as simple as making a child cry. Or it can be as complex as making your wife feel bad about herself.

  Martha Stout

  Children, Thinking, Winning

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• An intelligent sociopath can learn the rules about what's good and what's bad, what people see as good and bad. But they don't get that intervening sense of guilt, that pang of conscience, on account of it. So they tend to know what's wrong or right, they just don't care. That's another thing that they can use against us: that we do care. We're predictable in that.

  Martha Stout

  Intelligent, People, Guilt

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Usually sociopaths will look down upon us for that very reason - that we're gullible. We're weak. One person told me that he thought he was the only honest person because he would admit that he didn't have a conscience and everybody else was clearly faking it.

  Martha Stout

  Honest, Gullible, Reason

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Anger, as long as it is controlled anger, is no obstacle to efficiency. Self-control is one thing the sociopath does not usually possess. Use yours to his undoing.

  Jeff Cooper

  Self, Long, Doe

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• I would much rather read a book about Ty Cobb, who was quite possibly a sociopath. It makes for more interesting copy. Some of the most memorable characters in literature were villains.

  Jonathan Weeks

  Book, Character, Memorable

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• I certainly know the difference between right and wrong.

  Robert De Niro

  Differences, Velvet, Killers

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• Cats are the lap-dancers of the animal world. Soon as you stop shelling out, they move on, find another lap. They're furry little sociopaths. Pretty and slick -- in love with themselves. When's the last time you saw a seeing-eye cat?

  Andrew Vachss

  Moving, Cat, Eye

  Andrew Vachss (2001). “Safe House”, p.244, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• There’s an Iago and a Romeo within all of us. There is that lover, and there is that sociopath.

  Tom Hiddleston

  Lovers

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• Creative people like to think in unconventional ways, dislike rules, are easily bored, are independent, like to experiment, and enjoy being their own bosses. Basically the same traits found in most criminals and sociopaths

  Duncan Long

  Independent, Thinking, People

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• Sociopaths are just like everybody else in that some of them are really brilliant, some of them are really stupid, and most of them are somewhere in between.

  Martha Stout

  Stupid, Brilliant, Really Stupid

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• [T]he truth is you don't need some external demon to take control of you to turn you into a raging, money-obsessed sociopath, you only need to let loose the demons you already have inside of you.

  Jay-Z

  Needs, Demon, Truth Is

  Jay-Z (2010). “Decoded (Enhanced Edition)”, p.67, Random House Group

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