Steven Pinker Quotes

Quotes about:

• I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.

  Steven Pinker

  Giving, Purpose, Realization

  48 Copy quote

• Thanks to the redundancy of language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx vxwxls wxth xn "x" (t gts lttl hrdr f y dn't vn kn whr th vwls r)

  Steven Pinker

  Thanks, Language, Redundancy

  Steven Pinker (1994). “The Language Instinct”, William Morrow & Company

  64 Copy quote

• We will never have a perfect world, but it's not romantic or naive to work toward a better one.

  Steven Pinker

  Perfect, World, A Perfect World

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• We instinctively fear snakes, but we appear not to be afraid of fast cars, which are a real danger now. This suggests our emotions were shaped by our evolutionary environment not the one we grew up in.

  Steven Pinker

  Real, Snakes, Car

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• All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain. There is no reason to believe there is any magic going on.

  Steven Pinker

  Believe, Psychology, Magic

  "Steven Pinker: The evolutionary man". Interview with John Crace, www.theguardian.com. June 16, 2008.

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• Without goals the very concept of intelligence is meaningless

  Steven Pinker

  Goal, Concepts, Meaningless

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• Societies that empower women are less violent in every way.

  Steven Pinker

  Empowering, Way, Empowering Women

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• Reading is a technology for perspective-taking. When someone else's thoughts are in your head, you are observing the world from that person's vantage point.

  Steven Pinker

  Reading, Technology, Perspective

  Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”, p.203, Penguin

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• Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist.

  Steven Pinker

  Psychology, Mind, Woven

  24 Copy quote

• Babies are born with the instinct to speak, the way spiders are born with the instinct to spin webs. You don't need to train babies to speak; they just do. But reading is different.

  Steven Pinker

  Baby, Reading, Different

  46 Copy quote

• Morality comes from a commitment to treat other as we wish to be treated, which follows from the realization that none of us is the sole occupant of the universe.

  Steven Pinker

  Commitment, Wish, Realization

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• In our society, the best predictor of a man's wealth is his wife's looks, and the best predictor of a woman's looks is her husband's wealth.

  Steven Pinker

  Husband, Men, Wife

  Steven Pinker (2009). “How the Mind Works”, p.482, W. W. Norton & Company

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• We're living in primate heaven. We're warm, dry, we're not hungry, we don't have fleas and ticks and infections. So why are we so miserable?

  Steven Pinker

  Heaven, Fleas, Dry

  "Steven Pinker: the mind reader". www.theguardian.com. November 5, 1999.

  36 Copy quote

• We are visual creatures. Visual things stay put, whereas sounds fade.

  Steven Pinker

  Sound, Visuals, Creatures

  4 Copy quote

• Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics.

  Steven Pinker

  Memories, Psychology, Mind

  "Steven Pinker: fighting talk from the prophet of peace". Interview with John Naughton, www.theguardian.com. October 15, 2011.

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• Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.

  Steven Pinker

  Revenge, War, Water

  "Steven Pinker: 'Artists used to gush about the beauty of war. The First World War put an end to that'". Interview with Clint Witchalls, www.independent.co.uk. 10 November, 2011.

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• Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.

  Steven Pinker

  Faith, Believe, People

  "Brilliant Father Teaches His Children to Argue With Him Using Ancient Greek Rhetoric". rebrn.com. May 29, 2009.

  34 Copy quote

• Violent movements attract thugs and firebrands who enjoy the mayhem. Violent tactics provide a pretext for retaliation by the enemy and alienate third parties who might otherwise support the movement.

  Steven Pinker

  Party, Thug, Support

  9 Copy quote

• 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 confound our common sense. A century ago no one foresaw the existence of black holes, an expanding universe, oceans on Jupiter's moons, or DNA. What could be more enriching than to know that we share a common origin with all living things, that we are kin to chimpanzees, redwoods and mollusks? And isn't it a source of wonder to realize that the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones were created in the bellies of supernovas?

  Steven Pinker

  Ocean, Moon, Dna

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• It's natural to think that living things must be the handiwork of a designer. But it was also natural to think that the sun went around the earth. Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's highest callings.

  Steven Pinker

  Science, Thinking, Humanity

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• Knowing there is a world that will outlive you, there are people whose well-being depends on how you live your life, affects the way you live your life, whether or not you directly experience those effects. You want to be the kind of person who has the larger view, who takes other people's interests into account, who's dedicated to the principles that you can justify, like justice, knowledge, truth, beauty and morality.

  Steven Pinker

  Atheist, Knowing, Views

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• Being smarter gives you a tailwind throughout life. People who are more intelligent earn more, live longer, get divorced less, are less likely to get addicted to alcohol and tobacco, and their children live longer.

  Steven Pinker

  Children, Intelligent, People

  "This much I know". Interview With Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2008.

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• All of the violence that doesn't occur doesn't get reported on the news.

  Steven Pinker

  News, Violence

  "War And Violence On The Decline In Modern Times". Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. October 8, 2012.

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• After their return from Babylon, the practice of human sacrifice died out among the Jews, but survived as an ideal in one of its break-away sects, which believed that God accepted the torture-sacrifice of an innocent man in exchange for not visiting a worse fate on the rest of humanity. The sect is called Christianity.

  Steven Pinker

  Fate, Sacrifice, Men

  Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence In History And Its Causes”, p.205, Penguin UK

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• The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the religious right and its allies today, does not fit the facts of history.

  Steven Pinker

  Religious, Allies, Doe

  Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”, p.717, Penguin

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