751 Quotes by Steven Pinker

It got ugly. People used this as an occasion to vent a large number of grievances.

We can shape events in each other's brains with exquisite precision.

The 9/11 strikes left an indelible impact on our minds, but in relative terms, the scale of casualties actually wasn't all that high.

With violence, as with so many other concerns, human nature is the problem, but human nature is also the solution.

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 with pinpoint precision and unerring reliability, the feat of sitting exactly where it is sitting. Nothing would prevent us from agreeing with the cognitive scientist Zenon Pylyshyn that rocks are smarter than cats because rocks have the sense to go away when you kick them.

Today there are movements in the arts to reintroduce beauty and narrative and melody and other basic human pleasures. And they are considered radical extremists!

Unfortunately, creative people are at their most creative when writing their autobiographies.

Why is it surprising that scientists might have long hair and wear cowboy boots? In fields like neuroscience, where the events you are recording are so minute, I suspect scientists cultivate a boring, reliable image. A scientist with a reputation for flamboyance might be suspect.

To make changes you have to make some enemies, but you also have to be careful not too make too many enemies. He made far too many enemies.