Relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

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

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.

For a person to feel responsible for his actions, he must sense that the behavior has flowed from the self.

Even Eichmann was sickened when he toured the concentration camps.

A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act, and without pangs of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority.

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.