Steven Pinker is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist and linguist, born in 1954. He is also an author of popular science, such as “The Better Angels of Our Nature” (2011) and “Enlightenment Now” (2018).
This is a collection of quotes by Steven Pinker.
By Bhaawest [CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia Commons
Showing results 1 to 30 of 39
Almost by definition, art has no practical function.
Steven PinkerSource: The Blank Slate
Among the perquisites of freedom is the freedom of people to screw up their own lives.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Any curriculum will be pedagogically ineffective if it consists of a lecturer yammering in front of a blackboard, or a textbook that students highlight with a yellow marker. People understand concepts only when they are forced to think them through, to discuss them with others, and to use them to solve problems.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
As people age, they confuse changes in themselves with changes in the world, and changes in the world with moral decline - the illusion of the good old days.
Steven PinkerBritain and America are divided by a common language.
Steven PinkerSource: Words And Rules: The Ingredients of Language
But it’s in the nature of progress that it erases its tracks, and its champions fixate on the remaining injustices and forget how far we have come.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
By exposing the absence of purpose in the laws governing the universe, science forces us to take responsibility for the welfare of ourselves, our species, and our planet.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Cognitive psychology tells us that the unaided human mind is vulnerable to many fallacies and illusions because of its reliance on its memory for vivid anecdotes rather than systematic statistics.
Steven PinkerDoes it never strike you as puzzling that it is wicked to kill one person, but glorious to kill ten thousand?
Steven PinkerFor all their foolishness, modern societies have been getting smarter, and all things being equal, a smarter world is a less violent world.
Steven PinkerHow much of my brain tissue has to die before I die?
Steven PinkerSource: How the Mind Works
Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.
Steven PinkerIf my genes don't like it, they can jump in the lake.
Steven PinkerSource: How the mind works
In fact, war may be just another obstacle an enlightened species learns to overcome, like pestilence, hunger, and poverty.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Isn't keeping statistics on violence a form of violence?
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now
Life is better than death, health is better than sickness, abundance is better than want, freedom is better than coercion, happiness is better than suffering, and knowledge is better than superstition and ignorance.
Steven PinkerLight is so empowering that it serves as the metaphor of choice for a superior intellectual and spiritual state: enlightenment.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Many ideological beliefs, in addition to being evil, are patently ludicrous — ideas that no sane person would ever countenance on his or her own.
Steven PinkerNo one is smart enough to figure out anything worthwhile from scratch.
Steven PinkerOpposing reason is, by definition, unreasonable.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
People are not clones in a monoculture, so what satisfies one will frustrate another, and the only way they can end up equal is if they are treated unequally.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
People can believe in evolution without understanding it, and vice versa.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Religions are just ideas, and don't have rights.
Steven PinkerRemember your math: an anecdote is not a trend.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
Some events are determined, some are random; how can a choice be neither?
Steven PinkerSource: How the Mind Works
About free will
Thanks to the redundancy of language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx vxwxls wxth xn "x"
Steven PinkerThe beauty of reason is that it can always be applied to understand failures of reason.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
The fact that a hypothesis is politically uncomfortable does not mean that it is false, but it does mean that we should consider the evidence very carefully before concluding that it is true.
Steven PinkerThe first step toward wisdom is the realization that the laws of the universe don't care about you.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
The thinkers of the Enlightenment sought a new understanding of the human condition. The era was a cornucopia of ideas, some of them contradictory, but four themes tie them together: reason, science, humanism, and progress.
Steven PinkerSource: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress