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Brain Quotes

“It is imperfection - not perfection - that is the end result of the program written into that formidably complex engine that is the human brain, and of the influences exerted upon us by the environment and whoever takes care of us during the long years of our physical, psychological and intellectual development.”

“I always say this to people: 'If Shaq can be in the NBA for 19 years and dominate for 19 years using his body, why can't I be in the music industry for 50 years using my brain when my brain is way stronger than anyone's body?' I have to have a successful record company, more hit records. I want to dominate the game.”

People Ifs Way Want Years Body Games Brain Company Successful Records Industry Stronger Nba Music Industry Record Companies Shaq

Author:Rico Love

“One thing I've learned from 35 years in the classroom is that people learn best when they are laughing, when they are emotionally hit, that it's both the brain and the heart.”

People Years Heart Brain Laughing One Thing I've Learned Classroom Things I've Learned

Author:Robert Reich

“It's the old idea that the process of evolution is some push in the direction of greater complexity--in particular greater intellectual complexity. In one twig of the tree of life, namely ours, having a big brain happened to have advantages. But that's just what worked for a particular species of primate 5 to 7 million years ago.”

Years Ideas Bigs Process Brain Millions Greater Happened Tree Particular Evolution Intellectual Advantage Years Ago Species Complexity Tree Of Life Primates Twigs Old Ideas

Author:Steven Pinker

“In the past thirty years we have learned more about the workings of the human brain than in all of previous history.”

Years Humans Past Brain Knowledge Thirty Thirty Years Human Brain

Author:Daniel H. Pink

“I've become a collector of stories about unlikely returns: the sudden reappearance of the long-lost son, the father found, the lovers reunited after forty years. Once in awhile, a letter does fall behind a post office desk and lie there for years before it's finally discovered and delivered to the rightful address. The seemingly brain-dead sometimes wake up and start talking. I'm always on the lookout for proof that what is done can sometimes be undone.”

Source: The Age of Miracles

“I believe that the brain has evolved over millions of years to be responsive to different kinds of content in the world. Language content, musical content, spatial content, numerical content, etc.”

World Years Believe Kind Different Language I Believe Brain Millions Musical Etc Different Kinds Spatial Multiple Intelligences

Author:Howard Gardner

“For the last three years, I've been working on 'Bromst,' and that's all that encompassed my brain. And now that it's out, it will change the way that I think musically.”

Thinking Way Years Lasts Three Brain Three Years

Author:Dan Deacon

“I have been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). It's a terminal disease with an average lifespan of two to five years post-diagnosis, and scientists don't know what causes it. ALS prevents your brain from talking to your muscles. As a result, muscles die. As a result, every 90 minutes people die. I am a person.”

People Knows Years Persons Has Beens Two Dies Causes Results Brain Talking Five Minutes Disease Scientist Average Posts Muscles Five Years Als Diagnosis Terminal Terminal Disease

Author:Steve Gleason

“Good theories of the mind must span at least three different scales of time: slow, for the billions of years in which our brains have survivied; fast, for the fleeting weeks and months of childhood; and in between, the centuries of growth of our ideas through history.”

Years Mind Ideas Different Three Growth Brain Week Childhood Century Theory Months Billions Scales Fleeting

Author:Marvin Minsky

“From birth to the teenage years, the brain undergoes a fourfold increase in volume”

Years Brain Birth Increase Volume Teenage Teenage Years

Book:Teaching with the Brain in Mind

Source: Teaching with the Brain in Mind

“You don’t seduce in the same way at my age. You seduce with brains, with talent. Yesterday for lunch I met the most incredible 90-year-old woman. She survived Auschwitz, she was beautiful, she didn’t have white hair, she didn’t wear glasses. She was totally seductive. I just thought, Oh, my God, I still have time ahead of me.”

Way Years Stills Age Beautiful White Brain Talent Hair Mets Incredibles Glasses Yesterday Lunch Survived Seductive Old Woman Seducing Auschwitz White Hair

Author:Diane von Furstenberg

“Winter's here, and you feel lousy: You're coughing and sneezing; your muscles ache; your nose is an active mucus volcano. These symptoms -- so familiar at this time of year -- can mean only one thing: Tiny fanged snails are eating your brain.”

Feels Years Mean Brain One Thing Eating Winter Active Tiny Familiar Noses Muscles Symptoms Ache Volcanoes Snail Coughing Sneezing

Author:Dave Barry

“Know what Freud wrote in his diary when he was 77? "What do women want? My God, what do they want?" Fifty years this giant brain spends analyzing women. And he still can't find out what they want. So this makes him the world's greatest expert on female psychology?”

Knows World Want Years Stills Brain Psychology Female Experts Giants Fifty Diaries Women Want Analyzing

Author:Clare Boothe Luce

“Don't you feel something magical when you're in love?... I do, I certainly do ... but I think that feeling of magic is a hardwired psychological response. It's a chemical thing in the brain. It's a flow of chemicals and electrical currents, and it developed over millions of years in the process of evolution to aid in the procreation of the species.”

Thinking Feels Years Feelings Process Brain Millions Magic Evolution Flow Response Species Currents Aids Psychological Chemicals Electrical Procreation

Author:Alan Lightman

“George Burns was more athletic than you think he was. And he was a very social man. He loved people, he enjoyed life. He worked at living. Old George was a social lion, he got around and did things. That's the key right there. It starts with your brain.”

People Thinking Men Years Left Social Interest Brain Keys Busy Enjoyed Lions Athletic No Friends

Author:Jack LaLanne

“Physiologically adult humans are not meant to spend an additional 10 years in a school system; their brains map that onto "I have been assigned low tribal status". And so, of course, they plot rebellion - accuse the existing tribal overlords of corruption plot, perhaps to split off their own little tribe in the savanna, not realizing that this is impossible in the Modern World.”

World Years Humans Littles Has Beens School Courses Realizing Brain Impossible Modern Lows Adults Corruption Plot Maps Rebellion Splits Tribes Modern World School System Savanna

Author:Eliezer Yudkowsky

“With a little persuasion, any familiar thing can turn abnormal in the mind. Here's a thought experiment. Consider this brutal bit of magic. A human grows a second human in a space inside her belly; she grows a second heart and a second brain, second eyes and second limbs, a complete set of second body parts as if for use as spares, and then, after almost a year, she expels that second screaming being out of her belly and into the world, alive. Bizarre, isn't it?”

Source: The Age of Miracles: A Novel

“Whenever we feel stressed out, that's a signal that our brain is pumping out stress hormones. If sustained over months and years, those hormones can ruin our health and make us a nervous wreck.”

Ifs Feels Years Brain Months Stress Nervous Ruins Signals Stressed Wrecks Hormones Stressed Out

Author:Daniel Goleman

“Certainly the first true humans were unique by virtue of their large brains. It was because the human brain is so large when compared with that of a chimpanzee that paleontologists for years hunted for a half-ape, half-human skeleton that would provide a fossil link between the human and the ape.”

Years Firsts Humans Brain Half Virtue Unique Links Fossils Apes Human Brain Skeletons Hunted Chimpanzees

Author:Jane Goodall

“You hear a lot of people, they turn 40 and it really bugs them and they get depressed or whatever. I don't know - I just don't feel that way. I feel 19 years old all the time. I mean, it's not a lie. I could easily say, God, I feel 70. Or maybe I seem like I'm 70 or 200 or something to other people, I don't know. My brain feels 19 all the time. And that's a good spot.”

People Knows Way Feels Years Mean Seems Lying Turns Brain Spots Bugs

Author:Jack White

“Anthologies are mischievous things. Some years ago there was a rage for chemically predigested food, which was only suppressed when doctors pointed out that since human beings had been given teeth and digestive organs they had to be used or they degenerated very rapidly. Anthologies are predigested food for the brain.”

Years Humans Book Used Given Human Beings Brain Years Ago Doctors Rage Teeth Organs Anthology Mischievous

Book:The young Rebecca: writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17

Source: The young Rebecca: writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17

“What it 't to us, if taxes rise or fall, Thanks to our fortune, we pay none at all. Let muckworms who in dirty acres deal, Lament those hardships which we cannot feel, His grace who smarts, may bellow if he please, But must I bellow too, who sit at ease? By custom safe, the poets' numbers flow, Free as the light and air some years ago. No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains To tax our labours, and excise our brains. Burthens like these with earthly buildings bear, No tributes laid on castles in the air.”

Source: Poetical Works: With a Memoir by James L. Hannay and Copious Notes by W. Tooke

“In the field of economics we maintain to this day some of the most primitive ideas, some of the most radically false ideas, some of the most absurd ideas a brain can hold. ... but all this give no uneasiness to the average brain. That long-suffering organ has been trained for more thousands of years than history can uncover to hold in unquestioning patience great blocks of irrelevant idiocy and large active lies.”

“books are brain food. If every American would purchase the equivalent of his weight in books each year, this country would be a different place.”

Ifs Years Book Different Country Would Be Reading Brain Weight Book Reading Different Place

Author:Patricia Schroeder

“If we did not know all His retorts by heart, if we had not taken the sting out of them by incessant repetition in the accents of the pulpit, and if we had not somehow got it into our heads that brains were rather reprehnsible, we should reckon Him among the greatest wits of all time. Nobody else, in three brief years, has achieved such an output of epigram.”

Ifs Knows Should Years Heart Three Jesus Christ Brain Taken Jesus Christ Wit All Time Accents Repetition Pulpit Output Epigrams Incessant Retorts

Author:Dorothy L. Sayers

“For years I stopped reading beauty magazines because I couldn't look at one without wanting to blow my brains out. How can those women look so good?”

Years Looks Reading Brain Blow Magazines Beauty Magazines

Author:Jamie Lee Curtis

“With God's help, I've not had a drink in nine and a half years. That's my whole story right there. And because of that, I'm doing this. I'm making records, I'm touring. I was so involved in just getting brain damaged, I wasn't doing anything. I had great ideas, many notebooks filled with notes, some of them I can read and some of them I just can't read, but I really didn't do anything constructive, it was all just good ideas. Now I'm trying to lead a constructive life a day at a time.”

Trying Years I Can Ideas Whole Helping Stories Brain Half Records Involved Drink Filled Notes Nine Good Ideas Constructive Touring Notebook Great Idea Half A Year I Can Read

Author:Ringo Starr

“I was so frivolous for so many years. It was so much fun, but you feel guilty about the brain energy you use to think about whether some celebrity was sleeping with another celebrity. The conjecture that goes along with that. You feel like your mind has been shot apart.”

Thinking Feels Years Mind Has Beens Use Energy Fun Sleep Brain Like You Shots Guilty Frivolous Conjecture

Author:Chelsea Handler

“For some time there was a widely held notion (zealously fostered by the daily press) to the effect that the 'thinking ocean' of Solaris was a gigantic brain, prodigiously well-developed and several million years in advance of our own civilization, a sort of 'cosmic yogi', a sage, a symbol of omniscience, which had long ago understood the vanity of all action and for this reason had retreated into an unbreakable silence.”

Thinking Years Wells Long Reason Action Brain Silence Millions Effects Civilization Ocean Understood Presses Notion Symbols Vanity Cosmic Long Ago Sage Yogi Unbreakable Omniscience Solaris

Author:Stanislaw Lem

“Manchester United could have any goalkeeper in the world. I was a 23-year-old kid from New Jersey who, from an early age, had to cope with Tourettes Syndrome, a brain disorder that can trigger speech and facial tics, vocal outbursts and obsessive compulsive behavior.”

“Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week, of practice over 10 years... No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”

Knows World Needs Years Long Seems Three Found Hours Brain Class Practice Cases Week Achieve Thousand Ten Accomplished Mastery Expertise World Class

Author:Daniel Levitin

“People have wanted to look inside the human mind, the human brain, for thousands of years.”

People Years Mind Humans Looks Wanted Brain Human Mind Human Brain

Author:Christopher deCharms

“Eratosthenes's only tools were sticks, eyes, feet, and brains; plus a zest for experiment. With those tools he correctly deduced the circumference of the Earth, to high precision, with an error of only a few percent. That's pretty good figuring for 2200 years ago.”

Years Eye Earth Brain Feet Atheism Percent Years Ago Tools Sticks Errors Positive Atheism Experiments Plus Precision Zest

Author:Carl Sagan

“So are all the kids on the East Coast repeating school next year? Get ready to see a lot of hairy eighth graders. Storm brain drain.”

Years Kids School Next Community Brain Education Comedy Generations Ready Social Media Storm East Coast Next Year Drains East Coast Brain Drain

Author:Olivia Wilde

“Why does man freeze to death trying to reach the North Pole? Why does man drive himself to suffer the steam and heat of the Amazon? Why does he stagger his mind with the mathematics of the sky? Once the question mark has arisen in the human brain the answer must be found, if it takes a hundred years. A thousand years.”

“I learned in my early years in the theater that I would never become the guy on top. I'll never create a show; I don't have a brain expansive enough to see the whole picture, in a way that would behoove anyone.”

Way Years Enough Whole Shows Guy Brain Theater Whole Picture

Author:Nick Offerman

“A young financial writer once brought ridicule upon himself by stating that a certain company had nothing to commend it except excellent earnings. Well, there are companies whose earnings are excellent but whose stocks I would never recommend. In selecting investments, I attach prime importance to the men behind them. I'd rather buy brains and character than earnings. Earnings can be good one year and poor the next. But if you put your money into securities run by men combining conspicuous brains and unimpeachable character, the likelihood is that the financial results will prove satisfactory.”

“The most important, the longest lasting, the strongest emotional, and the most practiced memories are the ones that are embedded the deepest in the brain, and because we have retrieved them so many times previously, they are the most able to be retrieved. We all hear about people who can remember their youth, their phone number, or street address from 70 years ago, but they cannot recall what they had for breakfast. The memory of this morning's breakfast wasn't rehearsed, and wasn't very important, so it fades away quickly.”

“I mean five thousand years ago people emerge out of nowhere -sproing!- with brains and everything and begin wrecking the planet. You'd think we'd give the issue a little more thought than we do.”

People Thinking Giving Years Mean Littles Brain Issues Five Planets Thousand Years Ago Environmental Thousand Years Stewardship

Author:Douglas Coupland

“I just feel like it's so amazing every few years when I'm not making a film to act and basically go back to film school and just watch other filmmakers work and try to be a part of somebody else's vision. So I feel like you do use two very different parts of your brain, and it's great to be able to jump back and forth.”

Feels Trying Years Two Different Use Able School Film Brain Vision Watches Like You Filmmaker Back And Forth Film School

Author:Sarah Polley

“The Bush administration has been doing everything it can to hide the huge number of returning veterans who are severely wounded - 17,000 so far including roughly 20 percent with serious brain and head injuries. Even the estimate of $500 billion ignores the lifetime disability and healthcare costs that taxpayers will have to spend for years to come.”

Years Has Beens Numbers Brain Serious Huge Cost Percent Lifetime Including Billions Administration Injury Disability Healthcare Wounded Veteran Taxpayers Huge Numbers Head Injuries

Author:Joseph Stiglitz

“[Referring to the birds:] Nat listened to the tearing sound of splintering wood, and wondered how many million years of memory were stored in those little brains, behind the stabbing beaks, the piercing eyes, now giving them this instinct to destroy mankind with all the deft precision of machines.”

Source: THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI, THE STORY OF AVIATION, THE SWIMMING POOL, KISS ME AGAIn, STRANGER, RIVETS, ADVENTURES IN TWO WORLDS, THE SILENT WORLD, SHORT STORIES OF DE MAUPASSANT

“In my experience, you always think you know what you're doing; you always think you can explain, but you always discover, years later, that you didn't and you couldn't. This leads me to suspect that the principal function of human reason is to rationalize what your lizard brain demands of you. That's my idea.”

Thinking Knows Years Humans Ideas Reason Brain Demand Function Suspects Principal Doing You Leading Me Rationalize Lizards Human Reason

Author:Dave Hickey

“I believe in the hand-brain, pencil-to-paper-brain connection. In fact, I teach and I have the first year students do all of their drafting by hand to remind them that there is this physical connection between the two.”

Years Firsts Believe Two Facts Hands I Believe Brain Teach Students Paper Connections I Believe In Pencils Drafting

Author:Jennifer Tipton

“"Nothing is ever lost" means that what we are now goes all the way back through natural history. We are biological organisms and not simply computerized brains. By focusing totally on the present, thinking only about science and computers, and forgetting four billion years of life on this planet, we are losing perspective on who and what we are.”

Thinking Way Years Mean Lost Natural Forget Brain Four Planets Perspective Computer Losing Billions Organisms Natural History Years Of Life

Author:Robert Neelly Bellah

“People repeat behaviour that leads to flooding their brains with pleasurable chemicals. The short-term reward loop acts over hours to years, and the long-term reproductive success loop over generations.”

People Years Long Term Hours Brain Generations Rewards Long Term Repeats Chemicals Behaviour Short Term Loops Flooding

Author:Keith Henson

“The scientists who are working 80 hours a week trying to do their science are up against PR guys who know how to spin things and how to create doubt. Creating doubt around tobacco for fifty years when they absolutely knew it caused cancer, that was a real talent. But meanwhile, the scientists, they're not there to go on television. Their brains don't work like that.”

Knows Trying Years Real Guy Hours Brain Know How Doubt Week Talent Television Goes On Creating Scientist Cancer Fifty Tobacco Real Talent

Author:Robert Kenner

“Every year, it takes more brains to navigate this complicated world. More people are falling below what I call the 'incompetence line' through no fault of their own.”

People World Years Inspiration Fall Lines Brain Faults Complicated Incompetence Navigate Complicated World

Author:Scott Adams

“To me there is no more depressing sight than a five-year-old staring at a screen, unsmiling, mouse in hand. Besides whatever dreadful things this prolonged exposure to screens is doing to their brains, computer games tend to be solitary affairs, and produce little laughter.”

Years Littles Hands Games Brain Five Produce Computer Laughter Sight Affair Screens Staring Five Years Solitary Depressing Mice Exposure Five Year Olds Computer Games

Author:Tom Hodgkinson