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Robert M. Sapolsky

Robert M. Sapolsky Quotes

Neuroendocrinologist

Robert M. Sapolsky is a renowned neuroendocrinologist known for his research on stress, neurobiology, and evolutionary psychology. His work has revealed how stress affects the brain and body, and how these effects relate to human behavior and health.

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Famous Robert M. Sapolsky Quotes

“...I might continue to believe that there is no god even if it were proved that there is. A religious friend of mine once remarked that the concept of god is useful, because you can berate god during the bad times. But it is clear to me that I don't need to believe there is a god in order to berate him.”

Ifs Needs Believe Might Order Religious Clear Mines Concepts There Is No God Bad Times

Author:Robert M. Sapolsky

“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.”

Ifs Enough Smart Sick Compromise Stressed Being Smart

Author:Robert M. Sapolsky

“Pulling a gun's trigger can be an appalling act. But if it is suicidal drawing fire to save someone, it has an utterly different meaning. Placing your hand on someone's arm can be an act of deep compassion or the first step of betrayal. The punch line? It's all about context, and the biology of context is vastly more complicated than the biology of the behavior itself.”

Ifs Firsts Different Hands Lines Compassion Steps Fire Arms Behavior Gun Complicated Betrayal Drawing Biology First Steps Pulling Suicidal Triggers Of Context Different Meanings

Author:Robert M. Sapolsky

“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.”

Ifs Can Do Kindness Cases Buddhist Monk Testosterone Random Kindness Buddhist Monk

Author:Robert M. Sapolsky

“There's the complex categorization of low warmth/high competence. This is the hostile stereotype of Asian Americans by white America, of Jews in Europe, of Indo-Pakistanis in East Africa, of Lebanese in West Africa, of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, and of the rich by the poor most everywhere. It's the same low-high derogation: They're cold, greedy, clannish - -but, dang, they're sure good at making money and you should go to one who is a doctor if you're seriously sick.”

“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.”

Ifs Care Walking Longevity Walking Away Provocation Ranking If You Care Baboons

Author:Robert M. Sapolsky

“If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you're in big trouble.”

Ifs Bigs Trouble Emotional Models Rats Emotional Life

Author:Robert M. Sapolsky

“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.”

Ifs Strong Majors Appreciate Environmental Sentences Manifestation Characteristics Sunset Disorder Inability Triggers Single Sentence

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

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

“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.”

“Fossey, Fossey, you cranky difficult strong-arming self-destructive misanthrope, mediocre scientist, deceiver of earnest college students, probable cause of more deaths of the gorillas than if you had never set foot in Rwanda, Fossey, you pain-in-the-ass saint, I do not believe in prayers or souls, but I will pray for your soul, I will remember you for all of my days, in gratitude for that moment by the graves when all I felt was the pure, cleansing sadness of returning home and finding nothing but ghosts.”