I think it may not be a coincidence that the rise of printing and book publication and literacy and the phenomenon of best sellers all preceded the humanitarian reforms of the Enlightenment. – Steven Pinker
People today sometimes get uncomfortable with empirical claims that seem to clash with their political assumptions, often because they haven’t given much thought to the connections. – Steven Pinker
You have to remember that not every creature that was evolving left behind its skull or its tools for our convenience tens of thousands of years later. Most bones or most tools rot or get buried and are never found again. – Steven Pinker
Consciousness surely does not depend on language. Babies, many animals, and patients robbed of speech by brain damage are not insensate robots; they have reactions like ours that indicate that someone’s home. – Steven Pinker
As women are empowered, violence can come down, for a number of reasons. By all measures, men are the more violent gender. – Steven Pinker
I learned to focus my energy on high-quality, long-term projects rather than lower-quality projects with quicker payoffs. – Steven Pinker
The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate… is a totalitarian’s dream. – Steven Pinker
Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist. – Steven Pinker
Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture. – Steven Pinker
The way to understand how different species evolved is to think about the niches that they fill in an ecosystem – basically, how they make a living. – Steven Pinker
As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones. – Steven Pinker
Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we’re exposed to an infectious world. – Steven Pinker
The great appeal of the doctrine that the mind is a blank slate is the simple mathematical fact that zero equals zero. – Steven Pinker
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. – Steven Pinker
The European wars of religion were more deadly than the First World War, proportionally speaking, and in the range of the Second World War in Europe. The Inquisition, the persecution of heretics and infidels and witches, they racked up pretty high death tolls. – Steven Pinker
If you give people literacy, bad ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and lessons will accumulate. – Steven Pinker
Northeastern and most coastal states will vote for the candidate who is more closely aligned with international cooperation and engagement, secularism and science, gun control, individual freedom in culture and sexuality, and a greater role for the government in protecting the environment and ensuring economic equality. – Steven Pinker
Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality – the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world. – Steven Pinker
Some people believe that the nuclear bomb should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, since it scared the major powers away from war by equating it with doomsday. – Steven Pinker
One of the perks of being a psychologist is access to tools that allow you to carry out the injunction to know thyself. – Steven Pinker
I have never been a fan of science fiction. For me, fiction has to explore the combinatorial possibilities of people interacting under the constraints imposed by our biology and history. When an author is free to suspend the constraints, it’s tennis without a net. – Steven Pinker
I do look for openings where I can overturn popular misconceptions, but unlike Christopher Hitchens, I am neither a contrarian nor a lone heretic. I like to have a significant number of academics watching my back. – Steven Pinker
Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control. – Steven Pinker
Terrorist bombings, like rampage shootings, are events that maximize the amount of publicity per amount of damage. That’s why people do them, because they know they will set off a media frenzy. – Steven Pinker
There is a correlation between economic inequality and personal violence. The explanation for the correlation isn’t completely clear; there are a number of possibilities. – Steven Pinker
By exploring the political and moral colorings of discoveries about what makes us tick, we can have a more honest science and a less fearful intellectual milieu. – Steven Pinker
I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift. – Steven Pinker
Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world. – Steven Pinker
I teach classes 28 weeks of the year, but the rest of the time I do research and write books. – Steven Pinker
