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.

At North Hollywood High School, I was shunned by everyone. I would sit down in the cafeteria, and students would get up from the table and walk away. They thought I was from the Mafia...

Careers in virtually all academic disciplines are fostered by being a superstar who knows more about one subject than anyone else in the world.

Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.

There are no limits to what I would do to make my classes exciting, interesting, unpredictable.

... In contrast to the "banality of evil," which posits that ordinary people can be responsible for the most despicable acts of cruelty and degradation of their fellows, I posit the "banality of heroism," which unfurls the banner of the heroic Everyman and Everywoman who heed the call to service to humanity when their time comes to act. When that bell rings, they will know that it rings for them. It sounds a call to uphold what is best in human nature that rises above the powerful pressures of Situation and System as the profound assertion of human dignity opposing evil.

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