Reflex Action Quotes

We often disguise our reflexes as deliberate actions.

Humans are so innately hardwired for language that they can no more suppress their ability to learn and use language than they can suppress the instinct to pull a hand back from a hot surface.

There is a tendency among many shallow thinkers of our day to teach that every human act is a reflex, over which we do not exercise human control. They would rate a generous deed as no more praiseworthy than a wink, a crime as no more voluntary than a sneeze. . . Such a philosophy undercuts all human dignity. . . All of us have the power of choice in action at every moment of our lives.

[I write] intuitively, reflexively, as if skiing down a steep mountain slope with no time to think.

You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to 'Run forward, bend, scoop up the ball, peg it to the infield,' then your body says, 'Who me?'

I can't burp on command.

Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action.

People ask me 'what was going through your mind in the race?' and I don't know. I try and ...let my body do what it knows

I move my head. I don't get hit.

The less thinking you do, the better you play.

If you consume something that's poisonous, you don't consciously think of vomiting; your body just does it. It's a reflex. When I'm happy, I don't instantly feel the need to get rid of that feeling. But when I'm sad, I think maybe that's what happens.

Wrestling is second nature: I've been doing it for so long, so if it looks like someone's leg is available, it made sense for my first three fights that I would shoot for legs.

I just . . . knew, the way you know how to breathe or to pull your hand back from a hot stove.

You surprise yourself on some balls off the bat. You don't think you have a chance to catch it. And then your natural ability just takes over.

To keep your he-man jaw muscles from smashing your precious teeth, the only set you have, the body evolved an automated braking system faster and more sophisticated than anything on a Lexus. The jaw knows its own strength. The faster and more recklessly you close your mouth, the less force the muscles are willing to apply.

People make fast moves around me, I react. I can't help it.

At the very last moment, Nature would force you to blink your eye. Nature will protect her own.

If you dunk your head in cold water, you can't stay under for more than five seconds. I mean, that's it.

If we denote excitation as an end-effect by the sign plus (+), and inhibition as end-effect by the sign minus (-), such a reflex as the scratch-reflex can be termed a reflex of double-sign, for it develops excitatory end-effect and then inhibitory end-effect even during the duration of the exciting stimulus.

If you sit at your desk and reach and grab a cup of coffee, you don't look directly at the cup, focus on it, and get your fingers lined up before grabbing the coffee. In real life, you reach for a cup that you see out of the corner of your eye, and when you feel it, you know you can grab it.

The mental act of sensation which issues in reflex movement is so simple as to defy analysis.

Sometimes I don't realize the things I do on the court.

Once you click into a character, to a certain degree, you can do a lot else. You can do other stuff, then come back and click right into the character. It's sort of funny that way, the way the mind works. Once it's there, it's sort of there. For the stage, for example, all through the day, you're not onstage. You're living your life, la-la-la, then the lights go down, then boom! All of a sudden, you're in this thing. There's a kind of reflex muscle trigger that happens, and all of a sudden you're back into the role. It's just getting there in the first place that's tricky.

Truth always carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong.

This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose.