Steven Pinker Quotes - Page 11

Quotes about:

• An ideology can provide a satisfying narrative that explains chaotic events and collective misfortunes in a way that flatters the virtue and competence of believers, while being vague or conspiratorial enough to withstand skeptical scrutiny.

  Steven Pinker

  Events, Narrative, Way

  "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined". Book by Steven Pinker, www.huffingtonpost.com. 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steven Pinker

  Order, Police, Tests

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2008.

  53 Copy quote

• It's likely that taboo words are stored in the right hemisphere of the brain. Massive left hemisphere strokes or the entire surgical removal of the left hemisphere can leave people with no articulate speech other than the ability to swear, spout cliches and song lyrics.

  Steven Pinker

  Song, People, Brain

  "This much I know". Interview with Tom Templeton, www.theguardian.com. June 21, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

• So no, it's not all in the genes, but what isn't in the genes isn't in the family environment either. It can't be explained in terms of the overall personalities or the child-rearing practices of parents.

  Steven Pinker

  Children, Practice, Personality

  "A biological understanding of human nature". Edge Interview, www.edge.org. September 18, 2017.

  7 Copy quote

• In societies no less than individuals, acknowledging our limitations may ultimately be more humane than denying them.

  Steven Pinker

  May, Individual, Humane

  5 Copy quote

• The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by a sharp blow or by insufficient oxygen.

  Steven Pinker

  Blow, Oxygen, Knives

  Steven Pinker (2009). “How the Mind Works”, p.64, W. W. Norton & Company

  4 Copy quote

• The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.

  Steven Pinker

  Baby, Age, Tourists

  4 Copy quote

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

  Steven Pinker

  Psychology, Four, Human Nature

  "A biological understanding of human nature". Edge Interview, www.edge.org. September 18, 2017.

  68 Copy quote

• Working out what it would take to program goodness into a robot shows not only how much machinery it takes to be good but how slippery the concept of goodness is to start with.

  Steven Pinker

  Work Out, Robots, Goodness

  Steven Pinker (2009). “How the Mind Works”, p.17, W. W. Norton & Company

  10 Copy quote

• People are under the impression that dictionaries legislate language. What a dictionary does is keep track of usages over time.

  Steven Pinker

  Track, People, Doe

  4 Copy quote

• Paris Hilton, it turns out, is related to fellow celebrity jailbirds Zsa Zsa Gabor and G. Gordon Liddy.

  Steven Pinker

  Paris, Turns, Related

  "Surprising Family Trees!". abcnews.go.com. October 18, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Tools, Psychologist, Know Thyself

  4 Copy quote

• The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution.

  Steven Pinker

  Book, Political, Enlightenment

  "A biological understanding of human nature". Edge Interview, www.edge.org. September 8, 2002.

  18 Copy quote

• Language mavens commonly confuse their own peeves with a worsening of the language.

  Steven Pinker

  Mavens, Language, Peeves

  4 Copy quote

• I like ice hockey. No one is ever going to ask me to write about that as a metaphor for life.

  Steven Pinker

  Writing, Hockey, Ice

  4 Copy quote

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

  Steven Pinker

  Mysterious, Beneath The Surface, Surface

  5 Copy quote

• The reason the United States is not so likely to invade Iran is precisely because of the lessons learned from Iraq. And conversely, the Iranian push towards nuclear capability is calculated to deter invasions like the kind deposing Saddam Husain.

  Steven Pinker

  Iran, Iraq, Lesson Learned

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steven Pinker

  Art, World, Body

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steven Pinker

  Mean, Competition, Survival

  4 Copy quote

• I don't consider myself to be that radical a thinker.

  Steven Pinker

  Radical, Thinker

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steven Pinker

  Character, Numbers, Historic

  "Surprising Family Trees!". abcnews.go.com. October 18, 2007.

  7 Copy quote

Page 11 of 11

First

← Prev

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin