Shawn Achor Quotes

A bland smile is like a green light at an intersection, it feels good when you get one, but you forget it the moment you're past it.

Smile if you want a smile from another face.

Yes, people do come across the street to say hi, but as they approach and get near, my perception of space begins to dissolve, and a new interest takes over that is primarily emotional, and with it comes a desire to touch, which may be a human interest, but not the interest of my work.

If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.

I was immediately smitten with an attraction to this culture, not in the sense of high culture but of the basic way people behaved towards one another.

After my performance 'The Artist is Present (2010)' at MoMA in New York, many scientists became interested in why so many people who sat across from me began to cry. I was incredibly moved by this experience also, and was very curious to know what happens in our brains when we spend time not talking, just looking at one another.

I love how humans talk.

There are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.

Sweet intercourse of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow.

There is a pleasure in meeting the glance of a person whom we have lately laid under some obligations.

People who stare deserve the looks they get.

When you're nice to people, they want to be nice back to you.

If we use no ceremony towards others, we shall be treated without any. People are soon tired of paying trifling attentions to those who receive them with coldness, and return them with neglect.

I had to smile at the man. I mean, you have to smile at idiots and children.

There seems to be no agent more effective than another person in bringing a world for oneself alive, or, by a glance, a gesture, or a remark, shriveling up the reality in which one is lodged.

Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.

Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?

Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life; returns are equally expected for both.

When persons are present to one another they can function not merely as physical instruments but also as communicative ones. This possibility, no less than the physical one, is fateful for everyone concerned and in every society appears to come under strict normative regulation, giving rise to a kind of communication traffic order.

Manners are very communicable: men catch them from each other.

A lot of our lives are about being polite.

I can't comment on a person who won't comment on me in a positive light.

Extroverts are more attuned to social rewards, so they are more likely to flash a smile for effect. A notable exception are introverts - like me - whom I call "socially accessible" introverts. We have been trained well to smile and nod, which can place a burden on our processing efforts.

Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.

If your only nice to the people that are nice to you, big deal; what do you want, a gist certificate? Everyone does that. And if you only say "hi" in the hall to the people that say hi to you, what are doing more than anyone else? Maybe you know people who are different when they're alone than when they're with their friends. they might say "hi" to you if your alone, but with a group they act like they've never seen you.