Robert Wright Quotes

19 quotes in 532 categories

• Giving men marriage tips is a little like offering Vikings a free booklet titled How Not to Pillage.
• Darwin was one of our finest specimens. He did superbly what human beings are designed to do: manipulate social information to personal advantage. The information…
• Think of it : zillions and zillions of organisms running around, each under the hypnotic spell of a single truth, all these truths identical, and…
• Actually, there is a sense in which polygynous marriage has not been the historical norm - even where polygyny is permitted, multiple wives are generally…
• God knows greed won't vanish. Neither will hatred or chauvanism. Human nature is a stubborn thing. But it isn't beyond control. Even if our core…
• Religion is a feature of cultural evolution that, among other things, addresses anxieties created by cultural evolution; it helps keep social change safe from itself.
• Once you the forces that govern behavior,it's harder to blame the behaver
• Being a person's true friend means endorsing the untruths he holds dearest.
• Understanding the often unconscious nature of genetic control is the first step toward understanding that—in many realms, not just sex—we’re all puppets, and our best…
• If war can indeed be turned into a relic, then the virtue of greed will recede further. From a given society's standpoint, one big upside…
• Corruption is knowing when something is not being done, knowing when the American people are being left unprotected and when you make a decision not…
• Next time you see a yardful of sprouting dandelions, note that they look remarkably like things we call "flowers." And later, when the flowers turn…
• Next time you see an unblemished expanse of grass, think about the chemicals that probably got dumped in your vicinity to create it. Are you…
• Your brain may give birth to any technology, but other brains will decide whether the technology thrives. The number of possible technologies is infinite, and…
• We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones.
• If two people stare at each other for more than a few seconds, it means they are about to either make love or fight. Something…
• ...human beings are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their ignorance of…
• Humans have various ways of coping with extended stress, and one is the anticipation of a better time. Here, as with retribution, there is often…
• Whereas modern cynicism brought despair about the ability of the human species to realize laudable ideals, postmodern cynicism doesn't — not because it's optimistic, but…

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