Baumeister's Quotes

#1. People with high but unstable self-esteem exhibit the greatest hostility.

Roy Baumeister

#2. Baumeister's group has repeatedly found that an effort of will or self-control is tiring; if you have had to force yourself to do something, you are less willing or less able to exert self-control when the next challenge comes around. The phenomenon has been named ego depletion. In

Daniel Kahneman

#3. Trophies should go to the winners. Self-esteem does not lead to success in life. Self-discipline and self-control do, and sports can help teach those.

Roy Baumeister

#4. I swallowed darkness, and darkness swallowed me. Without light, without the beat if a heart to count the time, you learn that eternity is nothing fear. In fact, if they'd just leave you to it, an eternity alone in the dark can be a welcome alternative to the business of living.

Mark Lawrence

#5. The bold implication of this idea is that the effects of ego depletion could be undone by ingesting glucose, and Baumeister and his colleagues have confirmed this hypothesis in several experiments.

Daniel Kahneman

#6. Most of the problems that plague our society - addiction, overeating, crime, domestic violence, prejudice, debt, unwanted pregnancy, educational failure, underperformance at school and work, lack of savings, failure to exercise - are in some degree a failure of self-control.

Roy Baumeister

#7. It was never quite clear to Eleanor why the English thought it was so distinguished to have done nothing for a long time in the same place,

Edward St. Aubyn

#8. Original sin," he said thoughtfully. "That's about Adam an' - no, wait. I remember. Everybody's supposed to be sinful to start with because it takes a sin to get'm started.

Theodore Sturgeon

#9. The best way to reduce stress in your life is to stop screwing up.

Roy F. Baumeister

#10. With pride, there are many curses. With humility, there come many blessings.

Ezra Taft Benson

#11. Researchers were surprised to find that people with strong self-control spent less time resisting desires than other people did ... people with good self-control mainly use it not for rescue in emergencies but rather to develop effective habits and routines in school and at work.

Roy Baumeister

#12. However you define success - a happy family, good friends, a satisfying career, robust health, financial security, the freedom to pursue your passions - it tends to be accompanied by a couple of qualities.

Roy F. Baumeister

#13. Evil is not likely to result where people firmly believe that ends do not justify the means.

Roy Baumeister

#14. In Friendship we only see those faults which may be prejudicial to our friends. In love we see no faults but those by which we suffer ourselves.

Jean De La Bruyere

#15. I won't make you promises again that I can't keep. Swear that, babe. So when I promise right now that I know where my head is at with you and I want us both to give this the best shot we can give it, you can believe that.

Kristen Ashley

#16. What stress really does, though, is deplete willpower, which diminishes your ability to control those emotions.

Roy F. Baumeister

#17. For most of us ... the problem is not a lack of goals but rather too many of them.

Roy Baumeister

#18. It hurts me when seeing a girl cry ... I want to comfort them as long as I can ... or I'll end up crying too..

Zayn Malik

#19. Willpower is what separates us from the animals. It's the capacity to restrain our impulses, resist temptation - do what's right and good for us in the long run, not what we want to do right now. It's central, in fact, to civilisation.

Roy Baumeister

#20. The societal pursuit of high self-esteem for everyone may literally end up doing considerable harm.

Roy Baumeister

#21. What sets human beings apart from animals is not the pursuit of happiness, which occurs all across the natural world, but the pursuit of meaning, which is unique to humans.

Roy Baumeister

#22. Getting things down to routines and habits takes willpower at first but in the long run conserves willpower," says Baumeister.

Laura Vanderkam

#23. Whoa! So, we're going to a planet covered in zombies to recover a religious artifact right before the planet explodes?

Aaron J. Ethridge

#24. Most people who perpetrate evil do not see what they are doing as evil. Evil exists primarily in the eye of the beholder, especially in the eye of the victim.

Roy F. Baumeister

#25. Just because Congress passes a law and says it's all right to do a certain thing does not mean that it's all right to do it. Abortion is still just as wrong today as it was the first day of January, 1973.

Shelton Smith

#26. Our love of life is only an old liaison of which we do not know how to rid ourselves. Its strength lies in its permanence. But death which severs it will cure us of the desire for immortality.

Marcel Proust

#27. Willpower is a muscle that can be strengthened.

Roy Baumeister