"It is necessary to relax your muscles when you can. Relaxing your brain is fatal"
About this Quote
The specific intent is instructional, almost mechanical. He’s describing an elite performance state: loose hands on the wheel, steady breathing, no extra strain. That physical softness isn’t laziness; it’s precision. The subtext is harsher: the world he’s talking about doesn’t forgive cognitive drift. “Fatal” isn’t metaphorical flourish in motorsport; it’s occupational reality. Moss is quietly rejecting the romantic myth of daredevil chaos. Great drivers aren’t adrenaline addicts; they’re disciplined risk managers running constant calculations under pressure.
Context matters. Moss’s era was brutally analog: open cockpits, thin safety margins, tracks lined with trees and spectators, death woven into the calendar. In that environment, “relaxing your brain” names the one sin you can’t recover from. Culturally, the quote also reads as a rebuke to complacency: stay calm in the body, but never get comfortable in the mind. It’s a philosophy of alertness dressed as self-care, and it stings because it’s true far beyond racing.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Discipline |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Moss, Stirling. (2026, January 14). It is necessary to relax your muscles when you can. Relaxing your brain is fatal. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-necessary-to-relax-your-muscles-when-you-125041/
Chicago Style
Moss, Stirling. "It is necessary to relax your muscles when you can. Relaxing your brain is fatal." FixQuotes. January 14, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-necessary-to-relax-your-muscles-when-you-125041/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It is necessary to relax your muscles when you can. Relaxing your brain is fatal." FixQuotes, 14 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/it-is-necessary-to-relax-your-muscles-when-you-125041/. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.





