All Steven Pinker Quotes
- What a dull universe it would be if everything in it conformed to our expectations, if it held nothing to surprise or baffle us or… Ago
- Anything that makes it easier to imagine trading places with someone else increases your moral consideration for that other person. Consideration
- It begins with skepticism. The history of human folly, and our own susceptibility to illusions and fallacies, tell us that men and women are fallible. Begins
- Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's highest callings. Calling
- As technology accumulates and people in more parts of the planet become interdependent, the hatred between them tends to decrease, for the simple reason that… Accumulates
- When it comes to explaining human thought and behavior, the possibility that heredity plays any role at all still has the power to shock. To… Acknowledge
- My laptop has freed me to travel. Freed
- We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable,… Adults
- Dominance in an adaptation to anarchy and it serves no purpose in a society that has undergone a civilising process or in an international system… Adaptation
- Forcing modern speakers of English to not - whoops, not to split an infinitive because it isn't done in Latin makes about as much sense… Editing
- Modern biblical scholars have established that the bible is a wiki. It was compiled over half a millennium from writers with different styles, dialects, character… Bible
- In many Muslim countries, witchcraft is not only on the books as a crime, but is commonly prosecuted. In 2009, for example, Saudi Arabia convicted… Alphabet
- In culture after culture, people believe that the soul lives on after death, that rituals can change the physical world and divine the truth, and… Alleviated
- We can shape events in each other's brains with exquisite precision. Brain
- In fact, without a specification of a creature's goals, the very idea of intelligence is meaningless. A toadstool could be given a genius award for… Accomplishing
- You know that when Irving puts the dog in the car, it is no longer in the yard. When Edna goes to church, her head… Alive
- The task of evolutionary psychology is not to weigh in on human nature, a task better left to others. It is to add the satisfying… Add
- Evolutionarily speaking, there is seldom any mystery in why we seek the goals we seek — why, for example, people would rather make love with… Any
- The stuff of life turned out to be not a quivering, glowing, wondrous gel but a contraption of tiny jigs, springs, hinges, rods, sheets, magnets,… Assembled
- Writers acquire their technique by spotting, savoring, and reverse-engineering examples of good prose. Acquire