Social Intelligence Quotes

“Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.”
― Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

“If you are on social media, and you are not learning, not laughing, not being inspired or not networking, then you are using it wrong.”
― Germany Kent

“The argument has long been made that we humans are by nature compassionate and empathic despite the occasional streak of meanness, but torrents of bad news throughout history have contradicted that claim, and little sound science has backed it. But try this thought experiment. Imagine the number of opportunities people around the world today might have to commit an antisocial act, from rape or murder to simple rudeness and dishonesty. Make that number the bottom of a fraction. Now for the top value you put the number of such antisocial acts that will actually occur today.

That ratio of potential to enacted meanness holds at close to zero any day of the year. And if for the top value you put the number of benevolent acts performed in a given day, the ratio of kindness to cruelty will always be positive. (The news, however, comes to us as though that ratio was reversed.)

Harvard's Jerome Kagan proposes this mental exercise to make a simple point about human nature: the sum total of goodness vastly outweighs that of meanness. 'Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,' Kagan notes, 'they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture – especially toward those in need.' This inbuilt ethical sense, he adds, 'is a biological feature of our species.”
― Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

“Tweet others the way you want to be tweeted.”
― Germany Kent, You Are What You Tweet: Harness the Power of Twitter to Create a Happier, Healthier Life

“Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself”
― Philip Roth, American Pastoral

“Freedom of Speech doesn't justify online bullying. Words have power, be careful how you use them.”
― Germany Kent

“What you post online speaks VOLUME about who you really are. POST with intention. REPOST with caution.”
― Germany Kent

“Don't promote negativity online and expect people to treat you with positivity in person.”
― Germany Kent

“If you are in a position where you can reach people, then use your platform to stand up for a cause. HINT: social media is a platform.”
― Germany Kent

“Social intelligence was therefore always at a high premium. A sharp sense of empathy can make a huge difference, and with it in an ability to manipulate, to gain cooperation, and to deceive.”
― Edward O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth

“Incorporating general intelligence, bodily intelligence, emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, political intelligence and social intelligence in AI systems are part of the future deep learning research. ”
― Amit Ray, Compassionate Artificial Intelligence

“In a useful conversation... there is a double coincidence of wants. You have to be interested in what I have to say; I have to be interested in what you have to say. This is an important reason why people with conventional interests seem more socially intelligent. Even if they don't check whether their audience cares, it probably does.”
― Bryan Caplan

“Knowledge is not the same as wisdom. You can know all the facts and still not be able to act wisely. But without knowledge, it is harder to be wise –– even if what wisdom tells us is that knowledge is very often provisional and that we cannot wait to have certainty about every fact before we act.”
― Dan Smith, The State of the World Atlas

“How you bring people into your home is just as important as when they walk through the door. Frame well. #marketing”
― Richie Norton

“It might feel to you like a big waste of time chatting on texts endlessly and going on video dates that never end. But here is the thing...how much time did you waste going on endless, meaningless dates only to lead you down a path of disappointment?”
― Kimmy Seltzer

“Alone, seated in a strange house filled with strangers, I felt as if I were in dangerous waters, swimming badly and out of my depth. I was plankton in an ocean of whales.”
― Maya Angelou, Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas

“The main thing socially intelligent people understand is that your relationship to everyone else is an extension of your relationship to yourself.”
― Brianna Weist

“In real life, the political and strategic games used by politicians and statesmen are in fact social games - requiring social intelligence as well as technical mastery of information. The skills of the orator, cultivated by ancient statesmen like Cicero and Demosthenes, or by modern statesmen like Benjamin Disraeli and Abraham Lincoln, require emotional maturity and the talent of seeing events through the eyes of others. A great statesman sets aside his own egoism. He takes a more objective view. In this way, he avoids the errors that attend a purely egoistic standpoint. The explanation which Kierkegaard offered, which is none too flattering, is that people no longer desire a great king, a heroic liberator or an authoritative religion. They don’t want strict rules or high standards. That is because they want an easy time of it. They want a soft existence which can only be guaranteed by eschewing the great and heroic, the true and the noble. This is the moral perspective of high politics and of true statesmanship. Only those who reach this fifth stage can transform world calamity into world regeneration.”
― J.R.Nyquist

“Test the other person. See how he responds to you when you don't give him what he wants. If you don't see consistent changes in the way he thinks, acts, and interacts with you and others, don't for a minute believe his words or his profuse tears. (Proverbs 26:23-24) Jesus said, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance." (Matthew 3:8.)”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Relationship: Seeing It, Stopping It, Surviving It

“Evil people want to look good to others. They also want to appear good in their own eyes, so the pangs of shame and self-reproach do not penetrate their hearts.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Relationship: Seeing It, Stopping It, Surviving It