Top 50 Jill Bolte Taylor Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Take responsibility for the energy you bring.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

2. “Although many of us may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, biologically we are feeling creatures that think.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

3. “My favorite definition of fear is: False Expectations Appearing Real.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

4. “Emotion only lasts in our bodies for about 90 seconds. After that, the physical reaction dissipates, UNLESS our cognitive brain kicks in and starts connecting our anger with past events.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

5. “To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

6. “My stroke of insight would be: peace is only a thought away, and all we have to do to access it is silence the voice of our dominating left mind.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

7. “Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validated.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

8. “Who are we? We are the life force power of the universe.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

9. “I am the life-force power of the universe. I am the life-force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form, at one with all that is.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

10. “I’m an advocate for whole brain thinking. I’m not an advocate for the right brain or the left brain.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

11. “It takes 90 seconds from the time we have a thought that is going to stimulate an emotional response. When we have an emotional response it results in a physiological dumpage into our bloodstream. It flushes through and out of our body in less than 90 seconds.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

12. “Peace is only a thought away.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

13. “Fortunately, how we choose to be today is not predetermined by how we were yesterday... You and you alone choose moment by moment who and how you want to be in the world. I encourage you to pay attention to what is going on in your brain. Own your power and show up for your life.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

14. “The better we understand the choices we have been making, either consciously or unconsciously, the more say we will have in the world we create. Neurocircuitry may be neurocircuitry, but we don’t have to run on automatic.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

15. “I am always in quest of being open to what the universe will bring me.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

16. “The two hemispheres of the brain are two very different places and they don’t share any cell bodies. They are completely separate entities.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

18. “I have the ability to make a choice in how I respond. My natural response does not have to be the only response I have.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

19. “I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner circuitries of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

20. “An attitude of gratitude goes a long way when it comes to physical and emotional healing.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

21. “We have the power to chose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

22. “In the course of four hours, I watched my brain completely deteriorate in its ability to process all information. On the morning of the hemorrhage, I could not walk, talk, read, write or recall any of my life. I essentially became an infant in a woman’s body.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

23. “Can we think more than one thought at the same time? Most of us know we can’t do that. Both hemispheres are always working all of the time. But one of them is always dominant.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

24. “We can all learn that we can take full responsibility for what thoughts we are thinking and what emotional circuitry we are feeling. Knowing this and acting on this can lead us into feeling a wonderful sense of well-being and peacefulness.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

25. “If I can choose who I am in the moment, then I can choose to come in as my left brain personality and all of the skill sets that goes with that.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

26. “Most of the circuits in our brains run on automatic. The more you think a thought, the more energy goes into that circuit. Eventually it gets enough energy to run the thought automatically without us needing to put more energy into it.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

27. “I love knowing that I am simultaneously as big as the universe and yet merely a heap of star dust.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

28. “I can choose to come into the world as my right brain personality, which is more compassionate, more open, more loving, and more right here, right now available.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

29. “My left brain is doing the best job it can with the information it has to work with. I need to remember, however, that there are enormous gaps between what I know and what I think I know.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

30. “The easiest way I have found to humble myself back into a state of peaceful grace is through the act of gratitude.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

31. “Dr. Kat Domingo proclaims, “Enlightenment is not a process of learning, it is a process of unlearning.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

32. “To the right mind, no time exists other than the present moment, and each moment is vibrant with sensation. Life or death occurs in the present moment. The experience of joy happens in the present moment. Our perception and experience of connection with something that is greater than ourselves occurs in the present moment. To our right mind, the moment of now is timeless and abundant.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

33. “Peacefulness should be the place we begin rather than the place we try to achieve.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

34. “But without the judgment of my left brain saying that I am a solid, my perception of myself returned to this natural state of fluidity. Clearly, we are each trillions upon trillions of particles in soft vibration. We exist as fluid-filled sacs in a fluid world.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

35. “I don’t have time for a stroke!”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

36. “We actually do generate some new cells, some new neurons. So in the case of trauma there is the potential for there to be some new neural development which gives the person the chance to create new circuitry.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

37. “For many of us, once we have made a decision, then we are attached to that decision forever. I have found that often the last thing a really dominating left hemisphere wants is to share its limited cranial space with an open-minded right counterpart!”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

38. “Our cells stimulate our pain receptors in order to get our brain to focus and pay attention. Once my brain acknowledges the existence of the pain, then it has served its purpose and either lightens up in intensity, or goes away.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

39. “To be compassionate is to move into the right here, right now with an open heart consciousness and a willingness to be supportive.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

40. “Different entities are composed of different densities of molecules but ultimately every pixel is made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons performing a delicate dance. Every pixel, including every iota of you and me, and every pixel of space seemingly.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

41. “Yelling louder does not help me understand you any better! Don’t be afraid of me. Come closer to me. Bring me your gentle spirit. Speak more slowly. Enunciate more clearly. Again! Please, try again. S-l-o-w down. Be kind to me. Be a safe place for me. See that I am a wounded animal, not a stupid animal. I am vulnerable and confused. Whatever my age, whatever my credentials, reach for me. Respect me. I am in here. Come find me.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

42. “At the most elementary level of information processing, stimulation is energy, and my brain needed to be protected, and isolated from obnoxious sensory stimulation, which it perceived as noise.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

43. “Then it crosses my mind, ‘But I’m a very busy woman! I don’t have time for a stroke!’”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

44. “Learning to read again was by far the hardest thing I had to do. I don’t know if those cells in my brain had died or what, but I had no recollection that reading was something I had ever done before, and I thought the concept was ridiculous.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

45. “To experience pain may not be a choice, but to suffer is a cognitive decision.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

46. “I need to remember, however, that there are enormous gaps between what I know and what I think I know. I learned that I need to be very wary of my storyteller’s potential for stirring up drama and trauma.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

47. “I know it can be very uncomfortable for a healthy person to try to communicate with someone who has had a stroke, but I needed my visitors to bring me their positive energy. Since conversation is obviously out of the question, I appreciated when people came in for just a few minutes, took my hands in theirs, and shared softly and slowly how they were doing, what they were thinking, and how they believed in my ability to recover.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

48. “I realized, ‘Oh my gosh! I’m having a stroke! I’m having a stroke!’ The next thing my brain says to me is, ‘Wow! This is so cool! How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out?’”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

49. “It would have been really easy, a thousand times a day, to feel as though I was less than who I was before. I had, after all, lost my mind and therefore had legitimate reason to feel sorry for myself. But fortunately, my right mind’s joy and celebration were so strong that they didn’t want to be displaced by the feeling that went along with self-deprecation, self-pity, or depression. Part of getting out of my own way meant that I needed to welcome support, love, and help from others.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor

50. “Over the course of several years, if I didn’t respect my brain’s need for sleep, my sensory systems experienced agonizing pain and I became psychologically and physically depleted.”

— Jill Bolte Taylor