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

Robert M. Sapolsky

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Robert M. Sapolsky
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More quotes by Robert M. Sapolsky

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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
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We are just another primate but a very confused, malleable one.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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How much you groom somebody else is more important than who grooms you.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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We're getting along so well I trust you so much for this one second that I'm going to let you yank on me.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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Perhaps most excitingly, we are uncovering the brain basis of our behaviors - normal, abnormal and in-between. We are mapping a neurobiology of what makes us us.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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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
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What happened in the milliseconds before a behavior to cause it? That's in the neurobiological realm.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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Give lab rats oxytocin and, according to that meme, they get better at talking about their feelings and sing like Joan Baez.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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Importantly, rather than promoting aggression, testosterone promotes whatever is needed to maintain status when challenged.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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But often, it's easier to resist temptation with distraction, or to be so inculcated in doing the right thing that it's automatic, outside the frontal cortex's portfolio - Then it isn't the harder thing, it's the only thing you can do.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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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
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Oxytocin is lauded for how it promotes warmth, generosity, social bonding, cooperation, trust, and compassion.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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Genes are rarely about inevitability, especially when it comes to humans, the brain, or behavior. They're about vulnerability, propensities, tendencies.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you're in big trouble.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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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
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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
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Only humans invent moralizing gods who monitor our behavior.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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The frontal cortex doesn't even fully develop until age 25, which is wild!
Robert M. Sapolsky
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Naturally, things are more complicated - those groovy, pro-social effects of oxytocin apply to how we interact with in-group members.
Robert M. Sapolsky
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We’ve evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick.
Robert M. Sapolsky