I started with the belief that every person who came to the laboratory was free to accept or to reject the dictates of authority. This view sustains a conception of human dignity insofar as it sees in each man a capacity for choosing his own behavior. And as it turned out, many subjects did, indeed, choose to reject the experimenter's commands, providing a powerful affirmation of human ideals.

Perhaps the challenge is to invent the political structure that will give conscience a better chance against authority.

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.

Only in action can you fully realize the forces operative in social behavior. That is why I am an experimentalist.

It may be that we are puppets-puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation. (1974)

It is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.

The soldier does not wish to appear a coward, disloyal, or un-American. The situation has been so defined that he can see himself as patriotic, courageous, and manly only through compliance.