751 Quotes by Steven Pinker

'Capitalism' is a dirty word for many intellectuals, but there are a number of studies showing that open economies and free trade are negatively correlated with genocide and war.

Conventions are unstated agreements within a community to abide by a single way of doing things - not because there is any inherent advantage to the choice, but because there is an advantage to everyone making the same choice.

Heritability pertains to the entirety of the genome, not to a single gene.

Climate change could produce a lot of misery and waste without necessarily leading to large-scale armed conflict, which depends more on ideology and bad governance than on resource scarcity.

A decent government with an effective, but not gratuitously violent, police force and a fair court system are essential. This deters and incapacitates psychopaths, bullies and hotheads - and if it earns the confidence of the people, they don't have to become violent in self-defence.

I get drawn in when I feel there is something deep and mysterious going on beneath the surface of something.

The rules of friendship are tacit, unconscious; they are not rational. In business, though, you have to think rationally.

Everyone's pedigree merges into everyone else's pedigree. So if you go back far enough, everyone is related.

I teach classes 28 weeks of the year, but the rest of the time I do research and write books.