“They give up trusting others, and conversely others give up trusting them.”

— Frans de Waal

"Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are" (2005), p. 243
Context: In 1879, American economist Francis Walker tried to explain why members of his profession were in such "bad odor amongst real people". He blamed it on their inability to understand why human behavior fails to comply with economic theory. We do not always act the way economists think we should, mainly because we're both less selfish and less rational than economists think we are. Economists are being indoctrinated into a cardboard version of human nature, which they hold true to such a degree that their own behavior has begun to resemble it. Psychological tests have shown that economics majors are more egoistic than the average college student. Exposure in class after class to the capitalist self-interest model apparently kills off whatever prosocial tendencies these students have to begin with. They give up trusting others, and conversely others give up trusting them. Hence the bad odor.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "They give up trusting others, and conversely others give up trusting them." by Frans de Waal?

Frans de Waal photo

Frans de Waal 17

Dutch primatologist and ethologist 1948

Related quotes

“Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: "He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community." A community is not an abstract ideal. We are not striving for perfect community. Community is not an ideal; it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we would want them to be. Community means giving them space, helping them to grow. It means also receiving from them so that we too can grow. It is giving each other freedom; it is giving each other trust; it is confirming but also challenging each other. We give dignity to each other by the way we listen to each other, in a spirit of trust and of dying to oneself so that the other may live, grow and give.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Jean Vanier, From Brokenness to Community, 1992, pp 35-36
From books

“When it's for each other that people give things up they don't miss them.”

Henry James book The Ambassadors

Book VI, ch. III
The Ambassadors (1903)

“When we give trust, we receive trust. And people who trust us pay attention to us.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000), p. 33.

“We are only asking you to give to Christ that which you give to others, to transfer the old emotions, the blessed emotions, the exercise of which makes gladness in the life here below, to transfer them to Him, and to rest safe in the Lord. Faith is trust.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 590.

“Until he gives you a reason not to trust him, behave as though you trust him.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

“Love is when you give someone else the power to destroy you, and you trust them not to do it.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver

“It's amazing how someone's IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.”

Timothy Ferriss book The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek (2007)

“Those that trust no one, usually end up trusting the wrong person."-Umma to Midnight”

Sister Souljah book Midnight and the Meaning of Love

Source: Midnight and the Meaning of Love

“The greatest trust, between man and man, is the trust of giving counsel. For in other confidences, men commit the parts of life; their lands, their goods, their children, their credit, some particular affair; but to such as they make their counsellors, they commit the whole: by how much the more, they are obliged to all faith and integrity.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Counsel
Essays (1625)

Related topics