Robert M. Sapolsky Quotes

Quotes about:

• Until you appreciate something crucial - It is incredibly easy to manipulate us as to who counts as an Us, who as a Them.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Appreciate, Easy, Manipulate

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  8 Copy quote

• An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Heart, Mind, Prerequisites

  Robert M. Sapolsky (2006). “Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals”, p.208, Simon and Schuster

  38 Copy quote

• Brains distinguish between an Us and a Them in a fraction of a second. Subliminal processing of a Them activates the amygdala and insular cortex, brain regions that are all about fear, anxiety, aggression, and disgust.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Anxiety, Brain, Subliminal

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  8 Copy quote

• Get it wrong, and we call it a cult. Get it right, in the right time and the right place, and maybe, for the next few millennia, people won't have to go to work on your birthday.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  People, Next, Cult

  "Sapolsky on Religion". Human Behavioral Biology 150/250, Spring 2002.

  12 Copy quote

• The most important point of [Susan] Fiske's work is that it provides a taxonomy for our differing feelings about different Thems - sometimes fear, sometimes ridicule, sometimes contemptuous pity, sometimes savagery.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Feelings, Important, Taxonomy

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  8 Copy quote

• Essentially, we humans live well enough and long enough, and are smart enough, to generate all sorts of stressful events purely in our heads.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Smart, Long, Events

  Robert M. Sapolsky (2004). “Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping - Now Revised and Updated”, p.4, Macmillan

  28 Copy quote

• I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Art, Nature, Pain

  Robert M. Sapolsky (2004). “Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping - Now Revised and Updated”, p.10, Macmillan

  88 Copy quote

• Stress is not a state of mind... it's measurable and dangerous, and humans can't seem to find their off-switch.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Stress, Mind, States

  47 Copy quote

• If you live in a baboon troop in the Serengeti, you only have to work three hours a day for your calories, and predators don't mess with you much. What that means is you've got nine hours of free time every day to devote to generating psychological stress toward other animals in your troop. So the baboon is a wonderful model for living well enough and long enough to pay the price for all the social-stressor nonsense that they create for each other. They're just like us: They're not getting done in by predators and famines, they're getting done in by each other.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Stress, Mean, Animal

  45 Copy quote

• It's probably even the case that if you stoked up some Buddhist monks with tons of testosterone, they'd become wildly competitive as to who can do the most acts of random kindness.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Buddhist, Kindness, Monk

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  6 Copy quote

• But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Smart, Sick, Stressed

  34 Copy quote

• We live well enough to have the luxury to get ourselves sick with purely social, psychological stress.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Good Life, Stress, Luxury

  Robert M. Sapolsky (2007). “A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

  44 Copy quote

• If I had to define a major depression in a single sentence, I would describe it as a "genetic/neurochemical disorder requiring a strong environmental trigger whose characteristic manifestation is an inability to appreciate sunsets.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Strong, Sunset, Appreciate

  Robert M. Sapolsky (2004). “Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping - Now Revised and Updated”, p.272, Macmillan

  36 Copy quote

• The purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder, but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Purpose, Mystery, Wonder

  Robert M. Sapolsky (1997). “The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament”, Scribner Book Company

  39 Copy quote

• We are just another primate but a very confused, malleable one.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Confused, Primates

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  6 Copy quote

• What does the frontal cortex do? Gratification postponement, executive function, long-term planning, and impulse control. Basically, it makes you do the harder thing.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Impulse Control, Long, Doe

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  20 Copy quote

• We all seek out stress. We hate the wrong kinds of stress but when it's the right kind, we love it - we pay good money to be stressed by a scary movie, a roller coaster ride, a challenging puzzle.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Stress, Hate, Scary

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  22 Copy quote

• The problem isn't testosterone and aggression; it's how often we reward aggression. And we do: We give medals to masters of the "right" kinds of aggression. We preferentially mate with them. We select them as our leaders.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Giving, Leader, Rewards

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  11 Copy quote

• Importantly, rather than promoting aggression, testosterone promotes whatever is needed to maintain status when challenged.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Aggression, Needed, Testosterone

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  7 Copy quote

• The frontal cortex doesn't even fully develop until age 25, which is wild!

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Age

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  17 Copy quote

• On an incredibly simplistic level, you can think of depression as occurring when your cortex thinks an abstract thought and manages to convince the rest of the brain that this is as real as a physical stressor.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Real, Thinking, Brain

  Robert M. Sapolsky (2004). “Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping - Now Revised and Updated”, p.286, Macmillan

  26 Copy quote

• The less it is possible that something can be, the more it must be.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  31 Copy quote

• If you care about your longevity and health, be a socially affiliated baboon who is better than high-ranking ones at walking away from provocations.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Walking Away, Care, Ranking

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

  12 Copy quote

• Most people who do a lot of exercise, particularly in the form of competitive athletics, have unneurotic, extraverted, optimistic personalities to begin with. (Marathon runners are exceptions to this.)

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Optimistic, Exercise, People

  45 Copy quote

• Digestion is quickly shut down during stress…The parasympathetic nervous system, perfect for all that calm, vegetative physiology, normally mediates the actions of digestion. Along comes stress: turn off parasympathetic, turn on the sympathetic, and forget about digestion.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Stress, Perfect, Digestion

  "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping - Now Revised and Updated".

  6 Copy quote

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