Dopamine Quotes

• Attention is the way social primates measure status. It is highly rewarding because it causes the release of brain chemicals such as dopamine and endorphins.

  Keith Henson

  Brain, Attention, Way

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• That's what falling in love really amounted to, your brain on drugs. Adrenaline and dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. Chemical insanity, celebrated by poets.

  Tess Gerritsen

  Falling In Love, Oxytocin, Insanity

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• People say, "I wish I had more motivation today, because then I would try something." But our thinking is backward. The way our brain works is that dopamine - the so-called feel-good chemical - is released the second we actually do something. So the motivation doesn't come before, it comes after.

  Brendon Burchard

  Motivation, Thinking, People

  "The Motivation Manifesto". Book by Brendon Burchard, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 10, 2014.

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• Any kind of novelty or excitement drives up dopamine in the brain, and dopamine is associated with romantic love.

  Helen Fisher

  Happiness, Romantic Love, Brain

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• You start doing the addictive behavior to feel good and then your receptors get overloaded with dopamine, then you stop doing the addictive thing and some of the receptors have shut down and you don't have enough dopamine to feel good. So then you feel bad and go back to the addictive behavior to get more dopamine. The strange thing is that it works with what we think of as uppers and downers and whatever you call gambling - sidewaysers.

  Bill Nye

  Thinking, Gambling, Feel Good

  "Bill Nye: Cell phones aren't making us dumb". Interview with Wilson Rothman, www.nbcnews.com. March 23, 2010.

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• We get one of these little pings on our smartphones, and we get a little hit of dopamine as well. We get excited. We feel anticipation. As we feel this, we want it more and more. So we spend more and more time looking at our phones.

  Kim Stolz

  Phones, Want, Littles

  Source: www.usatoday.com

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• I can give you high blood pressure just on the phone by criticizing you. On the other hand, I can send a tweet to somebody in China and give them a dopamine hit.

  Deepak Chopra

  Phones, Blood, Hands

  "Not My Job: Deepak Chopra Plays 'Yes, We Cannes'". "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" with Peter Sagal, www.npr.org. June 1, 2013.

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• Each of our cells is a living entity, and the main thing that influences them is our blood. If I open my eyes in the morning and my beautiful partner is in front of me, my perception causes a release of oxytocin, dopamine, growth hormones - all of which encourage the growth and health of my cells. But if I see a saber tooth tiger, I'm going to release stress hormones which change the cells to a protection mode. People need to realize that their thoughts are more primary than their genes, because the environment, which is influenced by our thoughts, controls the genes.

  Bruce H. Lipton

  Beautiful, Morning, Stress

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• We get dopamine in the brain when we like something a lot. Well, cellphones stimulate dopamine, too. So it really is the case that there are some people who are pretty addicted to these devices.

  Devra Davis

  People, Brain, Cases

  Source: www.salon.com

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• Dopamine is a chemical released in your brain and your body when you sleep that paralyzes your body so you don't act out your dreams.

  Mike Birbiglia

  Dream, Sleep, Brain

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• When the eyes of a woman that a man finds attractive look directly at him, his brain secretes the pleasure-inducing chemical dopamine - but not when she looks elsewhere.

  Daniel Goleman

  Eye, Men, Brain

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• There's all kinds of reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another: Timing is important. Proximity is important. Mystery is important. You fall in love with somebody who's somewhat mysterious, in part because mystery elevates dopamine in the brain, probably pushes you over that threshold to fall in love.

  Helen Fisher

  Falling In Love, Brain, Important

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• Dopamine makes up less than one percent of the brain's neurotransmitters. It's a small portion. Dopamine is released when people are happy, angry, stressed. So it's really hard to call this specific neurotransmitter "the pleasure neurotransmitter."

  Carl Hart

  People, Brain, Stressed

  Source: therumpus.net

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• We know that drugs, sex and rock and roll stimulates something called dopamine in the brain. So do videogames. Dopamine is something that we crave.

  Devra Davis

  Sex, Rocks, Rock And Roll

  Source: www.salon.com

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• Every time my TweetDeck shoots a new tweet to my desktop, I experience a little dopamine spritz that takes me away from... from... wait, what was I saying?

  Bill Keller

  Waiting, Littles, Tweet

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• Science has learned recently that contempt and indignation are addictive mental states. I mean physically and chemically addictive. Literally! People who are self-righteous a lot are apparently doping themselves rhythmically with auto-secreted surges of dopamine, endorphins and enkephalins. Didn't you ever ask yourself why indignation feels so good?

  David Brin

  Mean, Self, People

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• In accounts of men in battle, there is an incredible adrenaline rush from group-versus-group conflict. The fervor and passion of partisans is clearly rewarding; and if it's rewarding, it involves dopamine; and if it involves dopamine, then it is potentially addictive.

  Jonathan Haidt

  Passion, Men, Battle

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• I used to be able to sit in a chair and for four hours straight in a very focused meditative way be in my own world without ay interruption. And now it's like your brain is getting so trained to check your phone, and there is like a dopamine release every time you get a text whether it's a good or a bad one. I'm really worried about what it's doing to our minds.

  Brit Marling

  Phones, Brain, Mind

  Source: collider.com

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• When women are subordinate by their culture, in being able to anticipate or think about pleasurable sex, it boosts dopamine, which is about confidence and assertiveness and motivation and drive and focus. So that to me, explained why for 5,000 years female sexuality has been targeted.

  Naomi Wolf

  Sex, Motivation, Thinking

  Source: brightestyoungthings.com

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• Much of the early work focused on dopamine and we were really looking for rewarding sorts of effects and sure enough, we only found that. But you can destroy the main dopamine-producing structures of the brain and you can still get an animal to self-administer drugs like cocaine.

  Carl Hart

  Animal, Self, Drug

  Source: therumpus.net

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• It turns out that dopamine is a chemical on double duty in the brain. Along with its role in motor commands, it also serves as the main messenger in the reward systems, guiding a person toward food, drink, mates, and all things useful for survival. Because of its role in the reward system, imbalances in dopamine can trigger gambling, overeating, and drug addiction - behaviors that result from a reward system gone awry.

  David Eagleman

  Gambling, Addiction, Drug

  David Eagleman (2011). “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain”, p.165, Vintage

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• You'd think people would realize they're bad at multitasking and would quit. But a cognitive illusion sets in, fueled in part by a dopamine-adrenaline feedback loop, in which multitaskers think they are doing great.

  Daniel Levitin

  Thinking, People, Multitasking

  Daniel Levitin (2015). “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload”, p.327, Penguin UK

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• What our grandmothers told us about playing hard to get is true. The whole point of the game is to impress and capture. It's not about honesty. Many men and women, when they're playing the courtship game, deceive so they can win. Novelty, excitement and danger drive up dopamine in the brain. And both sexes brag.

  Helen Fisher

  Sex, Honesty, Lying

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• The exaggerated dopamine sensitivity of the introvert leads one to believe that when in public, introverts, regardless of its validity, often feel to be the center of (unwanted) attention hence rarely craving attention. Extroverts, on the other hand, seem to never get enough attention. So on the flip side it seems as though the introvert is in a sense very external and the extrovert is in a sense very internal - the introvert constantly feels too much 'outerness' while the extrovert doesn't feel enough 'outerness'.

  Criss Jami

  Believe, Hands, Attention

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.27, Criss Jami

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