We are fascinating — the way we act, think, and feel can tell us so much about life. Think about all the different ways people act — some are shy, others are bold, some wear their hearts on their sleeves, while others keep their feelings hidden. It’s like watching a grand play where everyone has their own special part.
Over the years, Smart observers of human nature have noticed these patterns in how humans behave, and share these quotes about change in people behaviour that help us understand ourselves and others better.
When we read what others have said about how people behave, it’s often like looking in a mirror — we see bits of ourselves and start to understand why we do the things we do. They remind us that even though each person is unique, we all share common ways of thinking and feeling that connect us as humans.
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Best Quotes about Change in People Behaviour
1. “If they do it often, it isn’t a mistake; it’s just their behavior.” — Dr. Steve Maraboli
2. “Each person is responsible for his or her behavior.” — Melody Beattie
3. “Strange are the ways of human behavior.” — Orson Bean
4. “Knowledge is not a guarantee of good political behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior.” — Martha Nussbaum
5. “Well, what is acting but the study of human behavior? And that’s so fascinating to me.” — Amy Smart
6. “Would you say you behave differently when you know you’re being watched?” — Dave Eggers
7. “For anything to change, someone has to start acting differently.” — Chip Heath & Dan Heath
8. “The attitude is very important. Because, your behavior radiates how you feel.” — Lou Ferrigno
9. “You have to choose to do what needs to be done regardless of the inconvenience! That means: to forgive instead of holding a grudge, to go the extra mile instead of saying it can’t be done; to take 100% of the responsibility for your behavior instead of blaming others.” — Marc Reklau
10. “Age is just a number, not a state of mind or a reason for any type of particular behaviour.” — Cecelia Ahern
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11. “Your thoughts are energy and the energy follows the thought. Thoughts create emotions, which create behavior, which create actions, and those actions have consequences in your daily life.” — Marc Reklau
12. “I guess I’m just quite observant and I pay attention to a lot of things. Human behavior really fascinates me.” — Ellie Goulding
13. “Ultimately, all change efforts boil down to the same mission: Can you get people to start behaving in a new way?” — Chip Heath & Dan Heath
14. “The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.” — George Bernard Shaw
15. “Practice a thought often enough so that it becomes a belief, and your behavior and actions will follow its lead.” — Marc Reklau
16. “The Left has always sought single, non-values-based explanations for human behavior.” — Dennis Prager
17. “You can change the way people treat you by changing the way you treat yourself.” — Unknown
18. “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it ill behaves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.” — James Truslow Adams
19. “Start changing small things which don’t require a big effort and those small changes will eventually lead to bigger changes.” — Marc Reklau
20. “The ‘self-image’ is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior.” — Maxwell Maltz
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21. “The process of behavior change always starts with awareness.” — James Clear
22. “Love can be a tremendous deterrent to destructive behavior; it gives the individual the support she needs to change her life.” — T. D. Jakes
23. “If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior.” — Katharine Hepburn
24. “We are all serving a life sentence, and good behavior is our only hope for a pardon.” — Douglas Horton
25. “One bully changing their behavior for the better can have a profound effect on many, many lives.” — Hunter King
26. “Suddenly, a new image had risen up before me, a lofty and cherished image. And no need, no urge was as deep or as fervent within me as the craving to worship and admire. I gave her the name Beatrice….” — Hermann Hesse
27. “You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.” — Mahatma Gandhi
28. “To get along with God, consider the consequences of your behavior.” — Octavia E. Butler
29. “Reactive people… are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior.” — Stephen Covey
30. “Maybe sometimes people did not actually change. Maybe you just never knew who they really were.” — Unknown
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31. “But eventually you will find you return to your original behavior and attitudes. This is because your life is determined, insofar as it is a law of nature for you, to take the path of least resistance.” — Robert Fritz
32. “To change any behavior we have to slow down and act intentionally rather than from habit and impulse.” — Henna Inam
33. “Well behaved women seldom make history.” — Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
34. “It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.” — Warren Buffett
35. “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” — Leo Tolstoy
36. “This is important because our behavior is affected by our assumptions or our perceived truths. We make decisions based on what we think we know.” — Simon Sinek
37. “The most important thing in changing human behavior is the person’s motivation.” — Milton H. Erickson
38. “The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behavior.” — M. Scott Peck
39. “An apology without changed behavior is just manipulation.” — Unknown
40. “If you want to bring a fundamental change in people’s belief and behavior…you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured.” — Malcom Gladwell
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41. “To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior.” — Maxwell Maltz
42. “A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.” — Moliere
43. “If you attach to the negative behavior of others it brings you down to their level.” — Guru Singh
44. “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behaviour.” — Stephen M.R. Covey
45. “The objective is to change the system and the behaviour it encourages, rather than replacing ‘bad’ people with ‘good’ people.” — Owen Jones
46. “The most perfect expression of human behavior is a string quartet.” — Jeffrey Tate
47. “What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while.” — Unknown
48. “Forgiveness doesn’t excuse their behaviour. It prevents their behaviour from destroying your heart.” — Hemant Smarty
49. “Your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your behavior does.” — Unknown
50. “Once you feel you are avoided by someone, never disturb them again.” — Unknown
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51. “Time decides who you meet in your life. Your heart decides who you want in your life. Behavior decides who will stay in your life.” — Unknown
52. “People will notice the change in your attitude towards them, but won’t notice their behavior that made you change.” — Unknown
53. “If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
54. “Resentment leads to rude behaviour.” — Lailah Gifty Akita
55. “Knowledge that does not change behaviour is useless. But knowledge that changes behaviour quickly loses its relevance.” — Yuval Noah Harari
56. “People don’t change their behavior unless it makes a difference for them to do so.” — Sharon Stone
57. “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.” — Eckhart Tolle
58. “Hard work make us strong and behaviour makes us unique.” — Kishore Bansal
59. “You can’t help what you feel, but you can help how you behave.” — Margaret Atwood
60. “It’s hard to watch people change, but it’s even harder to remember who they used to be.” — Wiz Khalifa
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61. “Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
62. “Generally, I tend to despise human behavior rather than human creatures.” — Sidney Poitier
63. “Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while.” — Francois de La Rochefoucauld
64. “His new life required no great change in the patterns of his behaviour. It was merely an adjustment. He had always known how to make himself invisible.” — Christopher Fowler
65. “Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby – awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.” — Lemony Snicket
66. “I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with any other.” — Jane Austen
67. “People underestimate their capacity for change. There is never a right time to do a difficult thing.” — John Porter
68. “Start with changing behaviors, not mindsets. It is much easier to ‘act your way into new thinking’ than to ‘think your way into new actions.’ Recurring and consistent performance results from behavior change will lead to lasting changes in the way people feel, think, and believe in the long run.” — Jon Katzenbach
69. “You cannot change the people around you, but you can change the people you choose to be around.” — Unknown
70. “We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.” — Carl Jung
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71. “Life is hard. Life is difficult. Life is going to punch you in the gut. But when you change your attitude, you change your behavior. When your behavior changes, so do your results.” — Will Hurd
72. “I’ve learned that for many people, change is uncomfortable. Maybe they want to go through it, and they can see the benefit of it, but at a gut level, change is uncomfortable.” — Mitchell Baker
73. “Knowing that one is always capable of change, the second step lies in making the decision to change. Change does not occur by merely willing it anymore than behavior changes simply through insight.” — Leo Buscaglia
74. “Sometimes, it’s not the people who change, it’s the mask that falls off.” — Unknown
75. “We shall all have to be judged according to our works, whether they be towards man or towards beast.” — Anna Sewell
76. “Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there.” — Will Smith
77. “We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely… change is due to want power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now.” — George A. Sheehan
78. “We tend to judge others by their behavior, and ourselves by our intentions.” — Albert F. Schlieder
79. “Hard work make us strong behaviour and intentions makes us unique.” — Kishore Bansal
80. “We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.” — Henry Cloud
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81. “Don’t be much close to anybody because a small change in their behavior hurts a lot.” — Unknown
82. “No behavior can be changed before it’s acknowledged. And no addiction is beyond the reach of Love.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach
83. “If you’re always on time, it implies that you never have anything better you should be doing.” — Brandon Sanderson
84. “Only when you find the courage to say something to someone that might influence a change in your behavior, does that behavior change.” — Octavia Spencer
85. “You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.” — Nicky Gumbel
86. “You’re a grown up, and you get to decide what behaviors affect you for five minutes versus what behaviors change you as a person.” — Kelly Williams Brown
87. “Human behavior is an enormously complex set of things, and that mixture of underlying things is different for different people, so it’s not just complex, it’s meta-complex.” — Vivienne Ming
88. “How do you change your behavior? Change what you worship.” — Timothy Keller
89. “Only when you find the courage to say something to someone that might influence a change in your behavior, does that behavior change.” — Octavia Spencer
90. “Let’s enjoy the beautiful things we can see, my dear, and not think about those we cannot.” — Johanna Spyri
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91. “I can’t just say one time of the year I’m going to do something different. I have to commit to a lifestyle behavioral change and just try to be a little bit better today than I was yesterday.” — Gabrielle Union
92. “You don’t become a new person by changing your behavior; you discover who you are in Christ and your behavior changes accordingly.” — Graham Cooke
93. “There comes a day when you realise turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realise there’s so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.” — Zayn Malik
94. “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” — Plato
95. “It is always easier – and usually far more effective – to focus on changing your behavior than on changing the behavior of others.” — Bob Nelson
96. “I trust that no loving thought goes unnoticed, even when I do not see immediate gratitude or behavior changes in the other person.” — Lee L Jampolsky
97. “We don’t have to be embarrassed if someone we love chooses to behave inappropriately.” — Melody Beattie
98. “Be + Have = Behave. You will experience your success when you behave accordingly. Be and you shall have.” — Dr. Steve Maraboli
99. “I like reading novels because it provides insight into human behavior.” — Claire Danes
I hope you enjoyed this selection of the best quotes about change in people behaviour. If I have missed some quotes, share them with me in the comment section below and I will be happy to add them to the list.
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