1. People
    2.  › 
  2. James Gilligan
James Gilligan photo

James Gilligan Quotes

Total quotes: 9
“There are only two possible sources of love for the self from oneself and from others.”
— James Gilligan, Shame, Guilt, and Violence
Tagged: Psychology, Love, Where Love Comes From, self, Self-Esteem
“Those who kill others do so in part because they cannot stand to think that others are alive while they are not, and they cannot bear their living death.”
— James Gilligan, Violence
Tagged: Why people are such dicks, Violence, Shootings
“Understanding violence ultimately requires learning how to translate violent actions into words.”
— James Gilligan, Violence
Tagged: Why people are such dicks, Violence
“American violence is the result of our collective 'moral choice' to maintain those social policies that in turn maintain our uniquely high level of violence.”
— James Gilligan, Violence
Tagged: Why people are such dicks, Violence
“If the purpose of imprisonment were to socialize men to become as violent as possible -- both while they are there and after they return to the community -- we could hardly find a more effective way to accomplish it.”
— James Gilligan, Violence
Tagged: Jail, Prison, punishment
“The main motives for violence: the fear of shame and ridicule, and the overbearing need to prevent others from laughing at oneself by making them weep instead.”
— James Gilligan, Violence
Tagged: Why people are such dicks, Violence
“Life is inherently, inescapably, unfair. Job teaches us that it is not only futile to expect life to be just or fair, it is absurd and meaningless to even think about it in that way.”
— James Gilligan, Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic
Tagged: Why people are such dicks, Wisdom
“All violence is an attempt to achieve justice.”
— James Gilligan, Violence
Tagged: Why people are such dicks
“One of the most common fantasies I have heard from many of the most violent prison inmates is the scenario of going to their deaths in a hail of gunfire while killing as many people as possible before they selves die... In the prisons and on the streets of the United States, such behavior appears to be committed by people who are so tormented by feelings of being shamed and disrespected by their enemies that they are willing to sacrifice their bodies and their physical existence to replace those intolerable feelings with the opposite feelings of pride and self-respect, and of being honored and admired by their allies and at least respected by their enemies. Such people experience the fear that they provoke in their victims as a kind of ersatz form of respect, the only type they are capable of achieving.”
— James Gilligan, Shame, Guilt, and Violence
Tagged: Violence, Why People Commit Senseless Murders, Murder
loading next page...