Quotes from Robert Sapolsky

We're a miserably violent species. But there's a complication, which is we don't hate violence, we hate the wrong kind. And when it's the right kind, we cheer it on, we hand out medals, we vote for, we mate with our champions of it. When it's the right kind of violence, we love it.

In terms of the most unique thing we do socially, my vote goes to something we invented alongside cities - we have lots of anonymous interactions and interactions with strangers. That has shaped us enormously.

You know, I'm an egg-heady scientist with a large beard and like Birkenstocks.

There are absolutely ways to manipulate behavior, because our behavior is endlessly being manipulated by the world around us.

Genes are not about inevitabilities; they're about potentials and vulnerabilities.

I am completely of the school that mind is entirely the manifestation of brain. So when there's a change in mind, there's got to be a neurobiological underpinning.

Authoritarians have always been here. But the features of a given moment make that way of thinking more or less appealing. Germany in the 1920s, when people are starving, suddenly makes 'populist' answers and scapegoating different groups as the source of the problem much more appealing.

I used to be a very serious pianist, and I was one of the snot-nosed classical ones who was appalled by nightmares of Ethel Merman and trombones blasting in the background and who knows what else.

If some baboons just happen to be good at seeing water holes as half full instead of half empty... we should be able to as well.

One definitely wants to have a functioning hippocampus. It's all about learning and memory, the part blown out of the water by Alzheimer's disease. It's also the part that is most vulnerable to the effects of stress.

I expected social rank to be the determining factor in health, and in some ways that's true. But far more important is what sort of society that rank occurs in. Being low ranking in a benevolent troop is a hell of a lot better for your blood pressure than being low ranking in an aggressive troop.

The first roller coaster I ever went on in my life wasn't until college.

My roots, in college, were in behavior in the context of evolution.

Individuating and taking someone else's perspective can be very powerful.

An open mind is prerequisite to an open heart.

Primates are hardwired for us/them dichotomies. Our brains detect them in less than 100 milliseconds.

For an architect's son, I am remarkably unformed in my architectural tastes.

I was this eggheady kid, the one who was consistently beaten up and picked last for the baseball teams.

In other words, dopamine is not about the happiness of reward. It's about the happiness of pursuit of reward that has a decent chance of occurring.

The purpose of science in understanding who we are as humans is not to rob us of our sense of mystery, not to cure us of our sense of mystery. The purpose of science is to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate that mystery. To always use it in a context where we are helping people in trying to resist the forces of ideology that we are all familiar with.

If we were designed by engineers, as we consumed more, we'd desire less. But our frequent human tragedy is that the more we consume, the hungrier we get. More and faster and stronger. What was an unexpected pleasure yesterday is what we feel entitled to today, and what won't be enough tomorrow.

Willpower is more than just a metaphor; self-control is a finite resource.

the frontal cortex makes you do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do

For many people, this would be the point where one might do some soul-searching introspection, some painful confronting of truths as a means of personal growth. Being a scientist, I decided to avoid this by Studying the Subject. Donning my lab coat and postponing a microscope nearby ,I started making phone calls.