Best 15 quotes of Paul Ekman on MyQuotes

A broken promise is not a lie.

Crucial to how we feel is being aware of how we are feeling in the moment. The sine qua non of that is to realize that you are being emotional in the first place. The earlier you recognize an emotion, the more choice you will have in dealing with it. In Buddhist terms, it's recognizing the spark before the flame. In Western terms, it's trying to increase the gap between impulse and saying or doing something you might regret later.

Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces And Feelings To Improve Communication And Emotional Life.

If a person feels terrible, it usually should not be shown or acknowledged during a greeting exchange. Instead, the unhappy person is expected to conceal negative feelings, putting on a polite smile to accompany the “Just fine, thank you, and how are you?” reply to the “How are you today?” The true feelings will probably go undetected, not because the smile is such a good mask but because in polite exchanges people rarely care how the other person actually feels.

Impatience can be very good by helping us not put up with tyranny, but it can distort our view of what is possible and how to bring about change. We have to cultivate patience so that our perception isn't distorted.

In some instances, you may care so much about the person who has hurt you, or be so unable to be angry with him (or with anyone), that you rationalize his hurtful acts by finding some basis in your own actions for his hurtful behavior; you then feel guilty rather than angry. Put in other terms, you become angry with yourself rather than with the one who hurt you.

It is our responsibility to learn to become emotionally intelligent. These are skills, they’re not easy, nature didn’t give them to us - we have to learn them.

Lying is a deliberate choice to mislead a target without giving any notification of the intent to do so. There are two major forms of lying: concealment, leaving out true information; and falsification, or presenting false information as if it were true.

Most liars can fool most people most of the time.

MOST LIES succeed because no one goes through the work to figure out how to catch them.

People also smile when they are miserable.

People do misinterpret events, especially the meaning of other people’s actions and the motives that lead people to act one way or another.

Smiles are probably the most underrated facial expressions, much more complicated than most people realize. There are dozens of smiles, each differing in appearance and in the message expressed.

The distinction between shame and guilt is very important, since these two emotions may tear a person in opposite directions. The wish to relieve guilt may motivate a confession, but the wish to avoid the humiliation of shame may prevent it.

You were never taught how to talk with your face like you speak with words.