The mind, conditioned as it is by the past, always seeks to re-create what it knows and is familiar with. Even if it is painful, at least it is familiar. The mind always adheres to the known. The unknown is dangerous because it has no control over it. That's why the mind dislikes and ignores the present moment.
Liberty isn't liberalism, arbitrariness, but it's connected; it's conditioned by the great values of love and solidarity and in general by the good.
I've made a number of independent films that didn't receive theatrical distribution, that a lot of people haven't heard of, and as a result, I've conditioned myself to go into small independent films with the expectation that they will not, and therefore, I have to find my reward elsewhere.
From the living fountain of instinct flows everything that is creative; hence the unconscious is not merely conditioned by history, but is the very source of the creative impulse. It is like nature herself - prodigiously conservative, and yet transcending her own historical conditions in her acts of creation.
Find a gap between a trigger event and our usual conditioned response to it and by using that pause to collect ourselves and shift our response
Officers conditioned to conformity in peacetime cannot be expected to behave boldly and flexibly in combat.
If all individuals were conditioned to machine efficiency in the performance of their duties there would have to be at least one person outside the machine to give the necessary orders; if the machine absorbed or eliminated all those outside the machine, the machine will slow down and stop forever.
Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.
I think I am at my best when my hair is short. It's easier to take care of and more of who I am. Women are conditioned to think we need long hair.
Far from being magisterial in its objectivity, science was conditioned by history, society, and the prejudices of scientists.
Man can be conditioned to behave in almost every desired way; but only "almost.
I'm very fussy about how my records sound, but I'm very aware that because of the way they sound, I will never be a big-selling, mainstream artist because the public has gotten conditioned to hearing pop music in a certain way. And I don't do it that way.
Most of you are conditioned by the media.
Thought reflexes get conditioned very strongly, and they are very hard to change. And the also interfere. A reflex may connect to the endorphins and produce an impulse to hold that whole pattern forther. In other words, it produces a defensive reflex. Not merely is it stuck because it's chemically so well built up, but also there is a defensive reflex which defends against evidence which might weaken it. Thus it all happens, one reflex after another after another. It's just a vast system of reflexes. And they form a 'structure' as they get more rigid.
Unfortunately, I've gotten so conditioned, it's hard to sleep past 4 a. m.
In preindustrial cultures leisure is scarcely a burden or a "problem" because it is built into the ritual and ground plan of life for which people are conditioned in childhood; often they possess a relatively timeless attitude toward events.
Americans have been conditioned to respect newness, whatever it costs them.
Men, being conditioned badly, are always feeling nooses closing around their necks, even dumpy boors no girl would take on a bet.
Someone with a fresh mind, one not conditioned by upbringing and environment, would doubtless look at science and the powerful reductionism that it inspires as overwhelmingly the better mode of understanding the world, and would doubtless scorn religion as sentimental wishful thinking.
But there are no loners. No man lives in a void. His every act is conditioned by his time and his society.