Robert Sapolsky Quotes

In any group there is more or less tension between people, and there are complicities and affinities.

If you're a baboon on the Serengeti, and you're miserable, it's almost certainly because some other baboon has had the free time and energy to devote to making you miserable.

The only thing I learnt in high school is that people are very violent and territorial.

Sometimes you get yourselves in situations where you don't realize people are actually testing you. People are actually provoking you.

It's all realistic, if you get a group of ladies and you stick them together almost every day for three, four months you're going to have some catfights.

Closing one's eyes is not a recipe for peace. It is a simple way to embolden aggressive personalities.

If someone criticizes me, I strike back.

When men organize themselves into groups, and they make rules based on common or self-interest, it's always tangled and political.

In real life, I tend to yell at people a lot. Not because I'm bossy or mean, but because I'm frustrated.

Look, not everybody plays well with each other on the playground. I get that, that's politics.

Talking back and being quite aggressive about stuff and not giving a care in the world about anyone. So it was more, I think, that way and I think that's what happened in that party when I stood in between two people.

I learned early in life that laughter is a great way to diffuse and uncomfortable situation, so I began to use that as a tool, throughout my life.

We humans are really good at forming groups to compete, and then dissolving the groups and reforming them along different lines to compete in a different way.

What constrains or enables the capacity of human beings to work in groups is not so much the technology, but rather the capacity of the human brain to have and monitor social interactions.

I think being mean to people in high school is healthy. It's sort of like you're in this situation with all these other kids and sometimes you need to get your aggression out. And if you'd had people be mean to you before, it really does build character.

People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.

I was never a big guy in pubs. I was never the main kind of aggressor or anything like that, but I found myself in trouble because I always had a mouth that would come back with something, and there was just never anyone who could make me be quiet.

I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up.

If you're sensitive, you will have a hard time with me.

When you're on tour you definitely don't want lots of arguments. It's very important that everybody gets on because you're in close proximity a great deal of the time.

It's kinda cool seeing people having real fights with people they really know.

Without game, men prey on each other.

I'm not mean, just aggressive.

My hope was that organizations would start including this range of skills in their training programs - in other words, offer an adult education in social and emotional intelligence.

In most job interviews, people say they are looking for people skills and emotional intelligence. That's reasonable, but the question is, how do you define what that looks like?