We love to receive praise, but usually we're not certain what message, precisely, we should take from it. On the other hand, when someone points out our flaws, we realize immediately that something needs to change.

You're much better off creating positive rewards, complimenting people for acting correctly, rather than punishing them when they act incorrectly.

The discovery of the habit loop is important because it reveals a basic truth: When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts focus to other tasks.

Consumer habits are key to understanding how to launch a product.

The specific steps for changing a specific habit differ from person to person and habit to habit, but the steps - the formula - is essentially the same, and once you learn it, you can do amazing things.

For Aristotle, habits reigned supreme. The behaviors that occur unthinkingly are the evidence of our truest selves.

In 1688, Edward Lloyd opened a coffeehouse on London's seafront popular among underwriters, men in powdered wigs with mathematical minds and steely constitutions who offered to compensate owners if their boats were lost at sea.

Bank of America is the story of some of the most ambitious, aggressive bank builders on the face of the planet.

There are systems called zero discharge emission systems that would prevent any pollution from making it into the water or the air.

Way back in 2000, the EPA was poised, and, in fact, had drafted a rule, to specially regulate pollution - water pollution and other types of pollution - from power plants, but the energy industry pushed back pretty significantly.

Actually, attorneys say, copying a purchased CD for even one friend violates the federal copyright code most of the time.

Most shoppers don't buy everything they need at one store.

The desire to collect information on customers is not new for Target or any other large retailer, of course. For decades, Target has collected vast amounts of data on every person who regularly walks into one of its stores.

Charles Wyly was born Oct 13, 1933, in Lake Providence, La., and for a period lived with his family in a shack without electricity or plumbing.

America has always had an apocalyptic strain. Yet it also seems to believe that if, or when, The End comes, it will still come out on top.

Union leaders argue that pension shortfalls account for a proportionally tiny portion of governments' financial problems, and by all accounts, there are plenty of parties to blame for the growth in payrolls and obligations.

Government and other scientists have identified hundreds of chemicals that are linked to diseases in small concentrations and that are unregulated in drinking water or policed at limits that still pose serious risks.

There is no central government database that allows officials to monitor water tests by local systems.

State and federal studies indicate that thousands of water and sewer systems may be too old to function properly.

The Great Bailout is mostly over for the banks. But for those troubled behemoths of the nation's housing bust, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the lifeline from Washington just keeps getting longer.

Music and politics are in essence about communication. Without over-stretching the analogy I do feel a sense of rhythm is important in getting your message across.

Quality of life actually begins at home - it's in your street, around your community.

My health is good and it's up to me to keep it that way.

Valuing public servants would boost morale among those on the front line of implementing government policy.

The one thing we can all be sure about in politics is you are as well to expect the unexpected.

Good political leadership for me involves getting the big decisions right - however difficult, however controversial, however potentially divisive - and then being able to take people with you.

The government's instinct is to shroud itself in secrecy - to act like the office of a president instead of as a collective cabinet government held to account by the elected House of Commons.

Immigrants provide skills that we simply cannot afford to do without. They have contributed hugely to Britain's success.

I don't actually subscribe to the view that all power corrupts. But absolute power - when secured on the back of massive parliamentary majorities, which don't reflect the balance of political opinion in the country - can corrupt absolutely.

Courage is a peculiar kind of fear.

We have a Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales, both elected by fairer votes - involving proportional representation.

When it comes to our public services, decentralisation means giving power back to those on the front line - our doctors, nurses, teachers and physiotherapists, and our locally elected officials.

Three simple words - freedom, justice and honesty. These sum up what the Liberal Democrats stand for.

The way to defeat international terrorism is through international cooperation based on international law, clear intelligence, and a measured and appropriate military response.

Politics is much too serious to be taken too seriously; equally, there are many aspects of it so laughable as to be lamentable.

I do think there is a great deal of caricature around the House of Commons. It is just that kind of place.

Speaking to numerous teachers and nurses, I am consistently struck by the sense of mission they have about their work.

Of all the principles which constitute Liberal Democracy, internationalism is the clearest, the most distinctive, and the one with the longest history.

We all accept the world would be safer without Saddam's baleful dictatorship.

If British troops are committed to action, then the nation will, of course, support them. Their courage and skill is not in doubt.

I did not dwell on the issue of Europe during either the 2001 or the 2005 campaigns - despite it being a pivotal personal concern and despite seeing it as something of a litmus test for liberal democracy.

When I started knocking on Highland doors in May 1983, two things struck me more than any other. First was the sheer depth of hostility towards the Tories in general. Second was the particular hostility towards Margaret Thatcher and her local ministerial spear-carrier, energy minister and incumbent MP of 13 years' standing, Hamish Gray.

It must be a judge - never a politician - who decides whether someone is to be locked up.

I want our party to step up its efforts to reflect and champion the concerns of everybody who has reached the second half of their lives.

'Federalism', in the context of political and media usage in Britain, has come to mean the creation and imposition of a European superstate, one centralised in Brussels.

As a Scot, representing a Scottish constituency for almost the past 25 years, I do not harbour an overweening ambition to pronounce on each and every matter exclusively English.

I listened to the students on campus in Plymouth, worried about their steadily deepening debts and how on earth they would ever escape them.

That 1983 general election contained the telltale seeds of eventual Scottish Tory self-destruction.

There stands no contradiction between giving voice to legitimate anxiety and at the same time, as and when exchange of fire commences, looking to the rest of the country, as well as all of us in the House, to give full moral support to our forces.

Liberal Democracy is all about extending choice. Give people the option to decide their retirement age, and you immediately extend their freedom in a very significant way.