751 Quotes by Steven Pinker

We often feel that a clever aphorism captures a truth that would require pages to defend in any other way.

Why do people believe that there are dangerous implications of the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that the brain is organized in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by natural selection?

Societies that empower women are less violent in every way.

Consistent style prevents presentation from getting in the way of content.

Words let us say the things we want to say and also things we would be better off not having said. They let us know the things we need to know, and also things we wish we didn't.

... people notice differences and expect every difference in form to convey some difference in meaning.

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?

You could think of an ecosystem as a bunch of antagonistic arms races, almost: Everything that an animal depends upon for food is the body part of some other animal or plant who would just as soon keep that body part for itself.

Theories of art carry the seeds of their own destruction.