Steven Pinker Quotes

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Steven Pinker

Thanks, Language, Redundancy

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

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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

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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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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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Without goals the very concept of intelligence is meaningless

Steven Pinker

Goal, Concepts, Meaningless

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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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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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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

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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

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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.

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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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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 names, and conceptions of God and was subjected to haphazard editing that left it with many contradictions, duplications and non-sequiturs.

Steven Pinker

Character, Biblical, Editing

Steven Pinker (2011). “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”, p.28, Penguin

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Societies that empower women are less violent in every way.

Steven Pinker

Empowering, Way, Empowering Women

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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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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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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.

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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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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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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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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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Sex and excretion are reminders that anyone's claim to round-the-clock dignity is tenuous. The so-called rational animal has a desperate drive to pair up and moan and writhe.

Steven Pinker

Sex, Fear, Animal

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Dear White Fella When I am born I’m black When I grow up I’m black When I am sick I’m black When I go out ina sun I’m black When I git cold I’m black When I git scared I’m black And when I die I’m still black. But you white fella When you’re born you’re pink When you grow up you’re white When you git sick you’re green When you go out ina sun you go red When you git cold you go blue When you git scared you’re yellow And when you die you’re grey And you got the cheek to call me coloured?

Steven Pinker

Growing Up, Yellow, White

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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 a man for carrying a phone booklet with characters in an alphabet from his native Eritrea, which the police interpreted as occult symbols. He was lashed three hundred times and imprisoned for more than three years.

Steven Pinker

Country, Book, Character

"The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined". Book by Steven Pinker, October 4, 2011.

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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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Racism, because it favors color over talent, is bad for business.

Steven Pinker

Color, Racism, Favors

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Born: September 18, 1954
Occupation: Psychologist
Cite this Page: Citation

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