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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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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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

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

Steven Pinker

Sound, Visuals, Creatures

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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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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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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

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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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I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of... our mental faculties.

Steven Pinker

Sensitive, Cheesecake, Spots

Steven Pinker (2009). “How the Mind Works”, p.534, W. W. Norton & Company

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What is true for the emotions may also be true for the intellect. Some of our perplexities may come from a mismatch between the purposes for which our cognitive faculties evolved and the purposes to which we put them today.

Steven Pinker

Purpose, May, Today

Steven Pinker (2003). “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature”, p.295, Penguin

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The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.

Steven Pinker

Children, Ideas, Achievement

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

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Democracy is an imperfect way of steering between the violence of anarchy and the violence of tyranny, with the least violence you can get away with.

Steven Pinker

Democracy, Way, Anarchy

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

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