Top 90 Philip Zimbardo Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The greatest gift that you can give to others and to yourself is time. Embrace the gift of time whether you give it or receive it.”

— Philip Zimbardo

Featured in: Time Management Quotes

2. “Everyone must choose one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. – Jim Rohn, entrepreneur and motivational speaker.”

— Philip Zimbardo

3. “If you want to change a person, you’ve got to change the situation.”

— Philip Zimbardo

4. “Academic success depends on research and publications.”

— Philip Zimbardo

5. “To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant – because you’re always going against the conformity of the group.”

— Philip Zimbardo

6. “That human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside. The situation is the external environment. The inner environment is genes, moral history, religious training.”

— Philip Zimbardo

7. “The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.”

— Philip Zimbardo

8. “Evil is knowing better, but willingly doing worse.”

— Philip Zimbardo

9. “If you put good apples into a bad situation, you’ll get bad apples.”

— Philip Zimbardo

10. “Time matters because we are finite, because time is the medium in which we live our lives.”

— Philip Zimbardo

11. “Time perspective is one of the most powerful influences on all of human behavior. We’re trying to show how people become biased to being exclusively past-, present- or future-oriented.”

— Philip Zimbardo

12. “Yesterday was too early. Tomorrow will be too late. Today is the day of reckoning for each of us.”

— Philip Zimbardo

13. “Our time is brief, and it will pass no matter what we do. So let us have purpose in spending it. Let us spend it so that our time matters to each of us, and matters to all those whose lives we touch.”

— Philip Zimbardo

14. “Heroism is the antidote to evil.”

— Philip Zimbardo

15. “Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic.”

— Philip Zimbardo

16. “Bullies may be the perpetrators of evil, but it is the evil of passivity of all those who know what is happening and never intervene that perpetuates such abuse.”

— Philip Zimbardo

17. “Bullies are often people who are shy and can’t make friends easily, so, as the theme of the movie ‘A Bronx Tale’ tells us, it is better to be feared if you can’t be loved.”

— Philip Zimbardo

18. “Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.”

— Philip Zimbardo

19. “A life well lived is the best antidote to that fatal truth. Be active, not a passive worrywart. Find magic in the moment, joy in making someone smile. Listen to a lover’s sigh; look into the dancing eyes of a child you made feel special. Most of all, marvel at the wonder that eons of evolutionary time and all your unique experiences have joined to comprise the symphony that is YOU.”

— Philip Zimbardo

20. “Depending on whom you ask, time is money, time is love, time is work, time is play, time is enjoying friends, time is raising children, and time is much more. Time is what you make of it.”

— Philip Zimbardo

21. “Bullying is an evil because it not only destroys the life of the kid who’s bullied, but also makes everyone in the class who knows this is going on feel guilty for not doing anything.”

— Philip Zimbardo

22. “After doing psychology for half a century, my passion for all of it is greater than ever.”

— Philip Zimbardo

23. “I’ve always been curious about the psychology of the person behind the mask...”

— Philip Zimbardo

24. “Evil that arises out of ordinary thinking and is committed by ordinary people is the norm, not the exception.”

— Philip Zimbardo

25. “Ideas for my first experiments in human aggression came from discussions we had in a research seminar about William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies.’”

— Philip Zimbardo

26. “The world is, was, will always be filled with good and evil, because good and evil is the yin and yang of the human condition.”

— Philip Zimbardo

27. “The Stanford prison experiment came out of class exercises in which I encouraged students to understand the dynamics of prison life.”

— Philip Zimbardo

28. “Societal expectations matter little; personal expectations matter tremendously.”

— Philip Zimbardo

29. “The line between good and evil is movable and it’s permeable.”

— Philip Zimbardo

30. “I’ve always been curious about the psychology of the person behind the mask. When someone is anonymous, it opens the door to all kinds of antisocial behavior, as seen by the Ku Klux Klan.”

— Philip Zimbardo

31. “You are not the same person working alone as you are in a group; in a romantic setting versus an educational one; when you are with close friends or in an anonymous crowd; or when you are traveling abroad as when at home base.”

— Philip Zimbardo

32. “It was God who created hell as a place to store evil. He didn’t do a good job of keeping it there though.”

— Philip Zimbardo

33. “As a result of the prison study, I really became more aware of the central role of power in our lives. I became more aware of the power I have as a teacher. I started consciously doing things to minimize the negative use of power in the classroom. I encouraged students to challenge me.”

— Philip Zimbardo

34. “Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can kill you.”

— Philip Zimbardo

35. “My early childhood prepared me to be a social psychologist. I grew up in a South Bronx ghetto in a very poor family. From Sicilian origin, I was the first person in my family to complete high school, let alone go to college.”

— Philip Zimbardo

36. “Boys are 30 percent more likely than girls to drop out of school. In Canada, five boys drop out for every three girls. Girls outperform boys now at every level, from elementary school to graduate school.”

— Philip Zimbardo

37. “Evil consists in intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, or destroy innocent others – or using one’s authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behalf. In short, it is “knowing better but doing worse”.”

— Philip Zimbardo

38. “When I look back on it, I think, “Why didn’t you stop the cruelty earlier?” To stand back was contrary to my upbringing and nature. When I stood back as a noninterfering experimental scientist, I was, in a sense, as drawn into the power of the situation as any prisoners and guards.”

— Philip Zimbardo

39. “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. – Frederick Douglass, African-American social reformer and a leader of the abolitionist movement.”

— Philip Zimbardo

40. “If you don’t think much of yourself, why should I, since you obviously know yourself better than anyone else?”

— Philip Zimbardo

41. “We mortals can be fools, especially when mortal emotions rule over cool reason.”

— Philip Zimbardo

42. “That very day I resolved not to save all of my change until I turned forty. I resolved to have what I termed a little midlife crisis each day of my life in the hope of avoiding a larger one once I reached forty.”

— Philip Zimbardo

43. “Change alone is unchanging. – Heraclitus.”

— Philip Zimbardo

44. “One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again. – Abraham Maslow, humanist psychologist.”

— Philip Zimbardo

45. “What happens when good people are put into an evil place? Do they triumph or does the situation dominate their past history and morality?”

— Philip Zimbardo

46. “Coming from New York, I know that if you go by a delicatessen, and you put a sweet cucumber in the vinegar barrel, the cucumber might say, “No, I want to retain my sweetness.” But it’s hopeless. The barrel will turn the sweet cucumber into a pickle. You can’t be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel.”

— Philip Zimbardo

47. “Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behavior, more so that we recognize or acknowledge.”

— Philip Zimbardo

48. “Fear is the State’s psychological weapon of choice to frighten citizens into sacrificing their basic freedoms and rule-of-law protections in exchange for the security promised by their all-powerful government.”

— Philip Zimbardo

49. “Mama, humanity is my business.”

— Philip Zimbardo

50. “I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?”

— Philip Zimbardo