751 Quotes by Steven Pinker

But in most cases even the possibility that the correlations reflect shared genes is taboo.

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.

All of the violence that doesn't occur doesn't get reported on the news.

Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.

Personality and socialization aren't the same thing.

The elegant study... is consistent with the themes of modern cognitive neuroscience . Every aspect of thought and emotion is rooted in brain structure and function, including many psychological disorders and, presumably, genius. The study confirms that the brain is a modular system comprising multiple intelligences, mostly nonverbal.

Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture.

I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture.

After their return from Babylon, the practice of human sacrifice died out among the Jews, but survived as an ideal in one of its break-away sects, which believed that God accepted the torture-sacrifice of an innocent man in exchange for not visiting a worse fate on the rest of humanity. The sect is called Christianity.