Steven Pinker

The denial of human nature has led to misguided policies in education, mental health, and social engineering.

Grammar is not merely a set of rules imposed on language by adults but a system that children acquire effortlessly.

Happiness comes from within, but so does misery.

The world is getting better, despite what the news tells you.

Evolutionary psychology is the synthesis of modern evolutionary biology with psychology.

We are all born with a hard-wired moral sense.

Science is not a monument of received Truth but something that people do.

The decline of violence is due to the rise of reason, empathy, and self-control.

Words are the atoms that we use to assemble thought.

Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion.

The brain is a neural computer, and the mind is its software.

Optimism is a strategy for making a better future.

Nature provides no moral compass; that is the work of the human mind.

Language is the apparel in which thought is dressed.

The arc of moral progress bends towards justice, but it takes effort to bend it.

Children are wired for language from birth.

Facts don't care about your feelings, but they should inform them.

The illusion of the Blank Slate has done more harm than good.

Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

The mind works by reverse-engineering the products of natural selection.