I used to very politely say that if there is free will then it's in all sorts of boring places, like whether you're going to pick up this or that fork as you begin your meal. There really is none: It's all biology.
Robert SapolskyRead
We have this amazing ability to turn on the exactly same stress response worrying about a mortgage that a zebra does when it's sprinting away from a lion.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our stress responses can be similar regardless of the situation, whether it's a life-threatening event or everyday worries.
This quote highlights the paradoxical nature of human stress responses. Just as a zebra's body reacts to a predator, our bodies can trigger the same stress mechanisms in response to mundane concerns like financial burdens, indicating that our perceptions of stress can heavily influence our physiological reactions.
Themes
StressResponseMortgageWorryZebraLion
In practice
Example use cases
In a presentation about stress management, you might use this quote to illustrate how our worries can trigger strong physiological responses.
More from Robert Sapolsky
All quotes βWhen you've wised up enough, there is a very clear conclusion that you have to reach after a while, which is, at the end of the day, it is really impossible for one person to make a difference.
Robert SapolskyRead
My adolescent rebellions took the form of, if anything, passive aggressively doing what was asked of me but doing it ten times more than what was asked of me, so that eventually they'd have to beg me to stop.
Robert SapolskyRead
When humans invented material inequality, they came up with a way of subjugating the low-ranking like nothing ever seen before in the primate world.
Robert SapolskyRead
Yes, genes are important for understanding our behavior. Incredibly important - after all, they code for every protein pertinent to brain function, endocrinology, etc., etc. But the regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.
Robert SapolskyRead
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.
Robert SapolskyRead
Similar quotes
Of all human lamentations, without doubt, the most common is if only I had known. But we can't know, and so days of death and fire so often begin no differently than those of love and warmth.
Tom ClancyRead
Never read any book that is not a year old.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Young men, listen to an old man to whom old men listened when he was young.
AugustusRead
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
George Bernard ShawRead
Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.
Carl JungRead
Some men storm imaginary Alps all their lives, and die in the foothills cursing difficulties which do not exist.
E. W. HoweRead