Stanley Milgram quotes

Stanley Milgram was an American social psychologist, best known for his groundbreaking experiments on obedience to authority. His research provided deep insights into how ordinary people can commit acts against their conscience under pressure from authority figures. He remains a central figure in social psychology, influencing discussions about ethics and human behavior. Here are 15 of his quotes:

I would say, on the basis of having observe a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.

Stanley Milgram

It is easy to ignore responsibility when one is only an intermediate link in a chain of action.

Stanley Milgram

It is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.

Stanley Milgram

Only in action can you fully realize the forces operative in social behavior. That is why I am an experimentalist.

Stanley Milgram

It may be that we are puppets - puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.

Stanley Milgram

The essence in obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself as an instrument for carrying out another person's wishes and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions.

Stanley Milgram

If you think it is easy to violate social constraints, get onto a bus and sing out loud.

Stanley Milgram

The variety of political forms we have seen in history are only several of many possible political arrangements. Perhaps the next step is to invent and to explore political forms that will give conscience a better chance to resist errant authority.

Stanley Milgram

When an individual wishes to stand in opposition to authority, he does best to find support for his position from others in his group.

Stanley Milgram

Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the unimpeded flow of impulses destructive to others.

Stanley Milgram

Each individual possesses a conscience which to a greater or lesser degree serves to restrain the unimpeded flow of impulses destructive to others. But when he merges his person into an organizational structure, a new creature replaces autonomous man, unhindered by the limitations of individual morality, freed of humane inhibition, mindful only of the sanctions of authority.

Stanley Milgram

It may be that we are puppets - puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception, with awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation. The fact that obedience is often a necessity in human society does not diminish our responsibility as citizens. Rather, it confers on us a special obligation to place in positions of authority those most likely to use it humanely. And people are inventive. The variety of political forms we have seen in history are only several of many possible political arrangements. Perhaps the next step is to invent and to explore political forms that will give conscience a better chance to resist errant authority.

Stanley Milgram

The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.

Stanley Milgram