List of Steven Pinker Quotes

When Time Permits, I Try To See Interesting People In The Cities I Visit. In Seattle, I Met Paul Allen, The Co-founder Of Microsoft, Who Is Shy In Personality But Flamboyant In His Philanthropy.

There Is No Society Ever Discovered In The Remotest Corner Of The World That Has Not Had Something That We Would Consider The Arts. Visual Arts - Decoration Of Surfaces And Bodies - Appears To Be A Human Universal.

There's A Misconception That Survival Of The Fittest Means Survival Of The Most Aggressive. The Adjective 'darwinian' Used To Refer To Ruthless Competition; You Used To Read That In Business Journals. But That's Not What Darwinian Means To A Biologist; It's Whatever Leads To Reproductive Success.

Tom Hanks, Who Starred In 'the Da Vinci Code,' Turns Out To Be Related To A Number Of The Historic Characters That Feature In 'the Da Vinci Code,' Including William The Conqueror And Shakespeare.

Evolutionary Psychology Is One Of Four Sciences That Are Bringing Human Nature Back Into The Picture.

As Individual People, Embedded In Our Daily Lives, Of Course We're Interested In What Makes One Person Different From Another. We've Got To Hire One Person And Not Another, Marry One Person And Not Another.

One Of My Favourite Kinds Of Movie Is The American Picaresque, In Which The Characters Make Their Way Across The Country, Learning About Life Against The Gorgeous Backdrops Of That Vast Land.

Forcing Modern Speakers Of English To Not - Whoops, Not To Split An Infinitive Because It Isn't Done In Latin Makes About As Much Sense As Forcing Modern Residents Of England To Wear Laurels And Togas.

Of Course, Genes Can't Pull The Levers Of Our Behavior Directly. But They Affect The Wiring And Workings Of The Brain, And The Brain Is The Seat Of Our Drives, Temperaments And Patterns Of Thought.

My Politics Were Pretty Anarchistic Until 1969 When The Montreal Police Went On Strike. Within Hours, Mayhem And Rioting Broke Out And The Mounties Had To Be Called In To Restore Order. It Instilled In Me That One's Convictions Can Be Subjected To Empirical Test.

We Can Shape Events In Each Other's Brains With Exquisite Precision.

We Really Are Creatures Of A Violent World, Biologically Speaking - Watching Violence And Learning About It Is One Of Our Cognitive Drives.