Most of us fill up our lives and end our boredom with our involvement with other people - people we love, people… — Martha Stout Boredom Copy Share Image
The sociopath wants the person to be easily enough fooled to stick with him. This can be accomplished by looking for someone… — Martha Stout Copy Share Image
Another thing that's fun for sociopath is speed, literal speed, going very fast in your car. Not that everybody who goes fast… — Martha Stout Boredom Copy Share Image
The physical basis for sociopathy is approximately 50 percent inheritable, which sounds more dramatic than it probably is, because most personality characteristics… — Martha Stout Dramatic Copy Share Image
In Western culture, particularly North America, a lot of rules are descriptors for sociopathy: a general acceptance of lying as long as… — Martha Stout Acceptance Copy Share Image
“Rather, the best clue is, of all things, the pity play. The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people… — Martha Stout Habits Copy Share Image
“And so without our primordial attachments to others, what would we be? Evidently, we would be the players of a game, one… — Martha Stout Desire Copy Share Image
To learn to be charming is fairly easy - you can teach somebody to be charming and to learn human emotions -… — Martha Stout Behavior Copy Share Image
Conscience is a creator of meaning. As a sense of constraint rooted in our emotional ties to one another, it prevents life… — Martha Stout Copy Share Image
Sociopaths differ fairly dramatically in how their brains react to emotional words. An emotional word is love, hate, anger, mom, death, anything… — Martha Stout Book Copy Share Image
“Or no—let us say you are not quite such a person. You are ambitious, yes, and in the name of success you… — Martha Stout Desire for power Copy Share Image
“Maybe you cannot be the CEO of a multinational corporation, but you can frighten a few people, or cause them to scurry… — Martha Stout Crocodile Tears Copy Share Image
“Imagine that you are in your house—no—you are locked in your house, cannot get out. It is the dead of winter. The… — Martha Stout Electric light Copy Share Image
“-If I somehow possessed a set of videotapes that contained all the most significant events of your childhood, in their entirety, would… — Martha Stout Childhood trauma Copy Share Image
“A part of a healthy conscience is being able to confront consciencelessness. When you teach your daughter, explicitly or by passive rejection,… — Martha Stout Copy Share Image
“But after all the years, her husband and children have come to accept that, once every few weeks, their usually warmhearted and… — Martha Stout Children Copy Share Image
“Asked about our sense that we are not safe in our own world, Albert Einstein once said, “The world is a dangerous… — Martha Stout Copy Share Image
“To admit that some people literally have no conscience is not technically the same as saying that some human beings are evil,… — Martha Stout Conscience Copy Share Image
The central trait of sociopathy is a complete lack of conscience, which is very difficult for most people to get their heads… — Martha Stout Conscience Copy Share Image
Some parts of the population are starting to realize that character is extremely important and that it cannot be measured by the… — Martha Stout Character Copy Share Image
“Unless under the spell of a psychotic delusion, extreme rage, inescapable deprivation, drugs, or a destructive authority figure, a person who is… — Martha Stout Conscience Copy Share Image
I would hesitate to tell people to stop being kind or sympathetic to sociopath. But just like loyalty, some things that can… — Martha Stout Copy Share Image
An intelligent sociopath can learn the rules about what's good and what's bad, what people see as good and bad. But they… — Martha Stout Care Copy Share Image
Conscience is the still small voice that has been trying since the infancy of our species to tell us that we are… — Martha Stout Copy Share Image
Sociopaths are often extremely charming. They are people who are better than you and me at charming people, at being charismatic. I've… — Martha Stout Charismatic Copy Share Image
“If, instead, you find yourself often pitying someone who consistently hurts you or other people, and who actively campaigns for your sympathy,… — Martha Stout Signs Copy Share Image
If you see somebody really pulling for your sympathy while at the same time hurting you intermittently, you should start to wonder.… — Martha Stout Copy Share Image
People ask, "What could possibly cause a normal person to torture her own child?" Well, the answer is: Nothing could cause a… — Martha Stout Care Copy Share Image
The bottom line for most people who are normal is their need for other people. Even the greedy ones have this need… — Martha Stout Copy Share Image
Someone, or some group in George W. Bush administration, took 300 million people to war against their will, based on a very… — Martha Stout Copy Share Image
When you were a child, where boredom could actually get to be painful. Sociopaths experience that kind of pain in boredom. And… — Martha Stout Boredom Copy Share Image
“The panicked feeling of a guilty conscience never squeezes at your heart or wakes you in the middle of the night. Despite… — Martha Stout Conscience Copy Share Image
“As a counterpoint to sociopathy, the condition of narcissism is particularly interesting and instructive. Narcissism is, in a metaphorical sense, one half… — Martha Stout Desperate love Copy Share Image
Being sociopath is not what most people would consider to be winning. Most of us have some kind of positive goal in… — Martha Stout Children Copy Share Image
People ask me many times, "Aren't you afraid you're going to scare people? Aren't you afraid you're going to make people feel… — Martha Stout Acting Copy Share Image
