“Why are conscience-bound human beings so blind? And why are they so hesitant to defend themselves, and the ideals and people they care about, from the minority of human beings who possess no conscience at all? A large part of the answer has to do with the emotions and thought processes that occur in…”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“The intense charm of people who have no conscience, a kind of inexplicable charisma, has been observed and commented on by countless victims, and by researchers who attempt to catalog the diagnostic signs of sociopathy. It is a potent characteristic.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“In general, how can any of us live, as we all do, among significant numbers of destructive liars and con artists and fail to confront them, or even notice them?”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“Most people without conscience are more like Skip or Stamp Man, or the mother who uses her children as tools, or the therapist who deliberately disempowers vulnerable patients, or the seduce-and-manipulate lover, or the business partner who empties the bank account and vanishes, or the charming "fri…”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“If anything, people without conscience tend to believe their way of being in the world is superior to ours. They often speak of the naïveté of other people and their ridiculous scruples, or of their curiosity about why so many people are unwilling to manipulate others, even in the service of their m…”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“When sociopathy and blood lust come together in the same person, the result is a dramatic-even a cinematic-nightmare, a horror figure who seems larger than life. But most sociopaths are not mass murderers or serial killers. They are not Pol Pot or Ted Bundy. Instead, most are only life-size, like th…”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“After all, violence is conspicuous, and unless performed against the utterly powerless, such as children or animals, it is likely to get the perpetrator caught.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“The methods sociopaths dream up to control others - the schemes contrived to ensure "wins" - are quite various, and only a few of them have to do with physical violence.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“About one in twenty-five individuals are sociopathic, meaning, essentially, that they do not have a conscience. It is not that this group fails to grasp the difference between good and bad; it is that the distinction fails to limit their behavior.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“Very few people, no matter how educated they are in other ways, know the meaning of the word sociopathic. Far less do they understand that, in all probability, the word could be properly applied to a handful of people they actually know.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our s…”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“By the time she is thirty, the valiant little girl's "Ick!" - her tendency to respond, to rock the boat, when someone's actions are "really mean" - may have been excised from her behavior, and perhaps from her very mind.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“But after twenty-five years of treating trauma survivors, I have learned that getting hit is actually one of the more bearable ways a person can be assaulted.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“Do not set her up to be gaslighted. When she observes that someone who is being really mean is being really mean, tell her she is right and that it is okay to say so out loud.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“Apart from knowing someone well for many years, there is no foolproof decision, rule or litmus test for trustworthiness, and it is extremely important to acknowledge this fact, unnerving though it may be.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“The untrustworthy do not wear special shirts, or marks on their foreheads, and the fact that we must often make crucial decisions about other people based on not much more than guesswork leads us to irrational strategies that readily become lifelong superstitions.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“The most reliable sign, the most universal behavior of unscrupulous people is not directed, as one might imagine, at our fearfulness. It is, perversely, an appeal to our sympathy.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“The only truly effective method for dealing with a sociopath you have identified is to disallow him or her from your life altogether. Sociopaths live completely outside of the social contract, and therefore to include them in relationships or other social arrangements is perilous.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“Compliments are lovely, especially when they are sincere. In contrast, flattery is extreme and appeals to our egos in unrealistic ways. It is the material of counterfeit charm, and nearly always involves an intent to manipulate.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com
“Respect should be reserved for the kind and the morally courageous. Pity is another socially valuable response, and it should be reserved for innocent people who are in genuine pain or who have fallen on misfortune.”— Martha Stout, amazon.com