The quotations of

Robert Sapolsky

American neuroendocrinology researcher

born 1957

6 quotes, most often on Religion, Anti-Religion and Science.

Stated most straightforwardly, most of earth’s humans have inherited their beliefs about the nature of birth and death and everything in between and thereafter from preliterate Middle Eastern pastoralists.
Behave (2017), ch. 9, “Centuries to Millennia Before”, p. 313
- History
- Religion
Like so many other animals, we have an often-frantic need to conform, belong, and obey. Such conformity can be markedly maladaptive, as we forgo better solutions in the name of the foolishness of the crowd.
Behave (2017), ch. 12, “Hierarchy, Obedience, and Resistance”, p. 451
If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you’re in big trouble.
Stress, Neurodegeneration and Individual Differences (2001)
- Comedy
- Science
The far-from-original point I will try to make now should seem obvious: There is an unsettling similarity between the rituals of the obsessive-compulsive and the rituals of the observantly religious.
“Circling the Blanket for God”, The Trouble with Testosterone (1997), p. 263
- Anti-Religion
- Religion
There is no reason to be less moved by nature around us simply because it’s revealed to have more layers of complexity than we first observed.
Emperor Has No Clothes Award acceptance speech (2003)
- Nature
- Science
Get it wrong, and we call it a cult. Get it right, in the right time and the right place, and maybe, for the next few millennia, people won’t have to go to work on your birthday.
“Sapolsky on Religion”, Human Behavioral Biology 150/250 (Spring 2002)
- Anti-Religion
- Religion

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