The tendencies of democracies are, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge and principles of the majority form the tribunal of the appeal. - James Fenimore Cooper
Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society. - Benjamin Franklin
I, myself, spent 9 years in an insane asylum and never had any suicidal tendencies, but I know that every conversation I had with a psychiatrist during the morning visit made me long to hang myself because I was aware that I could not slit his throat. - Antonin Artaud
When the whirlpool of thoughts is going on; that is known as the mind. At that time, the mind is functioning independently. That and the vrutis (tendencies of the chit) have no relationship. The tendencies arise later on, and then they go back and forth. - Dada Bhagwan
When the tendencies (vruti) that were wandering around since time immemorial come within & enter into the Self’s (Soul’s) abode; it is known as freedom from all wanderings (nivruti). - Dada Bhagwan
Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies. - David Foster Wallace
All intellectual tendencies are corrupted when they consort with power. - Clive James
Successfully functioning in a society with diverse values, traditions and lifestyles requires us to have a relationship to our own reactions rather than be captive of them. To resist our tendencies to make right or true, that which is nearly familiar, and wrong or false, that which is only strange. - Robert Kegan
The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person. - Alain de Botton