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" The more you think about and interact with other people, the more you realize that it is untenable to privilege your interests over theirs. "
Steven Pinker
Think
Privilege
People
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" 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
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" Violence and religion have often gone together, but it's not a perfect correlation, and it doesn't have to be a permanent connection, because religions themselves change. "
Steven Pinker
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" Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language. "
Steven Pinker
Painting
Poetry
Music
" America had, for one thing, lived in anarchy for - until much more recently than Europe. We had the Wild West, where the cliche of the cowboy movies was the nearest sheriff is 90 miles away, and so you had to pack a gun and defend yourself. "
Steven Pinker
You
Movies
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" Look at almost any passage, and you'll find that a paragraph has five or six metaphors in it. It's not that the speaker is trying to be poetic, it's just that that's the way language works. "
Steven Pinker
You
Find
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" In any dispute, each side thinks it's in the right and the other side is demons. "
Steven Pinker
Thinks
Any
Right
" I think that communism was a major force for violence for more than 100 years, because it was built into its ideology - that progress comes through class struggle, often violent. "
Steven Pinker
Communism
Progress
Struggle
" Parents provide their children with genes as well as an environment, so the fact that talkative parents have kids with good language skills could simply mean that and that the same genes that make parents talkative make children articulate. "
Steven Pinker
Good
Children
Mean
" There has to be innate circuitry that does the learning, that creates the culture, that acquires the culture, and that responds to socialization. "
Steven Pinker
Does
Learning
Socialization
" Broadly speaking, the Southern and Western desert and mountain states will vote for the candidate who endorses an aggressive military, a role for religion in public life, laissez-faire economic policies, private ownership of guns and relaxed conditions for using them, less regulation and taxation, and a valorization of the traditional family. "
Steven Pinker
Family
Life
Mountain
" I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture. "
Steven Pinker
Culture
Our
Think
" Anything that makes it easier to imagine trading places with someone else increases your moral consideration for that other person. "
Steven Pinker
Moral
Person
Places
" An eye for beauty locks onto faces that show signs of health and fertility - just as one would predict if it had evolved to help the beholder find the fittest mate. "
Steven Pinker
Health
Beauty
Eye
" We know about every massacre that has taken place close to the present, but the ones in the distant past are like trees falling in the forest with no one to hear them. "
Steven Pinker
Place
Trees
Like
" With violence, as with so many other concerns, human nature is the problem, but human nature is also the solution. "
Steven Pinker
Human Nature
Problem
Violence
" Mother Teresa was the very embodiment of saintliness: white-clad, sad-eyed, ascetic and often photographed with the wretched of the earth. "
Steven Pinker
Wretched
Earth
Embodiment
" 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
History
Me
Science
" 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
Moment
Gift
Life
" Plants can't very well defend themselves by their behavior, so they resort to chemical warfare, and plants are saturated with toxins and irritants to deter creatures like us who want to eat them. "
Steven Pinker
Eat
Behavior
Plants
" We really are creatures of a violent world, biologically speaking - watching violence and learning about it is one of our cognitive drives. "
Steven Pinker
Our
Violence
Learning
" Whenever you speak to someone, you are presuming the two of you have a certain degree of familiarity - which your words might alter. So every sentence has to do two things at once: convey a message and continue to negotiate that relationship. "
Steven Pinker
You
Speak
Words
" No one knows what the nongenetic causes of individuality are. Perhaps people are shaped by modifications of genes that take place after conception, or by haphazard fluctuations in the chemical soup in the womb or the wiring up of the brain or the expression of the genes themselves. "
Steven Pinker
Place
Soup
Brain
" Jews are known for many things, but strength, swiftness, and agility are not among them. There is one trait, as controversial as it is familiar, for which Jews are above all known, and that is shrewdness in business. "
Steven Pinker
Business
Things
Strength
" 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
You
Know
Carry
" Many artists and scholars have pointed out that ultimately art depends on human nature. "
Steven Pinker
Art
Out
Nature
" Regardless of its causes, thoughtlessly blaming the present is a weakness which, even if it is never outlawed, ought to be resisted. Though commonly flaunted as a sign of sophistication, it can be an opportunity for one-upmanship and an excuse for misanthropy, especially against the young. "
Steven Pinker
Weakness
Opportunity
Young
" For one thing, before the 20th century, there were plenty of genocides. We tend to forget about them, partly because they weren't as well documented and partly because, until recently, people didn't care. We used euphemisms like 'sackings' and 'sieges' instead of calling them 'genocides.' "
Steven Pinker
Well
Used
People
" A word is an arbitrary label - that's the foundation of linguistics. But many people think otherwise. They believe in word magic: that uttering a spell, incantation, curse, or prayer can change the world. Don't snicker: Would you ever say, 'Nothing has gone wrong yet' without looking for wood to knock? "
Steven Pinker
Prayer
People
Change
" All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain. There is no reason to believe there is any magic going on. "
Steven Pinker
Magic
Reason
Result
" I don't think language could have evolved if it was the only distinctive trait. It goes hand in hand with our ability to develop tools and technologies, and also with the fact that we cooperate with nonrelatives. "
Steven Pinker
Hand
Tools
Think