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Top 500 Steven Pinker Quotes (2026 Update)
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Steven Pinker Quote: “I get drawn in when I feel there is something deep and mysterious going on beneath the surface of something.”

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

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Pre-state societies were far more violent than our own.”

252. “Pre-state societies were far more violent than our own.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Existen buenas razones evolutivas para que los miembros de una especie inteligente intenten vivir en paz.”

253. “Existen buenas razones evolutivas para que los miembros de una especie inteligente intenten vivir en paz.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “So if the language is our guide, the lofty declaration of abstract principles is really a story with a strange and clunky plot. Some people are hanging beneath some other people, connected by cords. As stuff flows by, something forces the lower people to cut the cords and stand beside the upper people, which is what the rules require. They see some onlookers, and clear away the onlookers’ view of what forced them to do the cutting.”

254. “So if the language is our guide, the lofty declaration of abstract principles is really a story with a strange and clunky plot. Some people are hanging beneath some other people, connected by cords. As stuff flows by, something forces the lower people to cut the cords and stand beside the upper people, which is what the rules require. They see some onlookers, and clear away the onlookers’ view of what forced them to do the cutting.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Mother Teresa was the very embodiment of saintliness: white-clad, sad-eyed, ascetic and often photographed with the wretched of the earth.”

255. “Mother Teresa was the very embodiment of saintliness: white-clad, sad-eyed, ascetic and often photographed with the wretched of the earth.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “In fact, war may be just another obstacle an enlightened species learns to overcome, like pestilence, hunger, and poverty.”

256. “In fact, war may be just another obstacle an enlightened species learns to overcome, like pestilence, hunger, and poverty.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world’s ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to genocide.”

257. “As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world’s ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to genocide.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “If you extol reason, then what matters is the integrity of the thoughts, not the personalities of the thinkers. And if you’re committed to progress, you can’t very well claim to have it all figured out. It takes nothing away from the Enlightenment thinkers to identify some critical ideas about the human condition and the nature of progress that we know and they didn’t. Those ideas, I suggest, are entropy, evolution, and information.”

258. “If you extol reason, then what matters is the integrity of the thoughts, not the personalities of the thinkers. And if you’re committed to progress, you can’t very well claim to have it all figured out. It takes nothing away from the Enlightenment thinkers to identify some critical ideas about the human condition and the nature of progress that we know and they didn’t. Those ideas, I suggest, are entropy, evolution, and information.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “And contrary to an earlier belief, winning the lottery does, over the long term, make people happier.”

259. “And contrary to an earlier belief, winning the lottery does, over the long term, make people happier.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “We take its gifts for granted: newborns who will live more than eight decades, markets overflowing with food, clean water that appears with a flick of a finger and waste that disappears with another, pills that erase a painful infection, sons who are not sent off to war, daughters who can walk the streets in safety, critics of the powerful who are not jailed or shot, the world’s knowledge and culture available in a shirt pocket. But these are human accomplishments, not cosmic birthrights.”

260. “We take its gifts for granted: newborns who will live more than eight decades, markets overflowing with food, clean water that appears with a flick of a finger and waste that disappears with another, pills that erase a painful infection, sons who are not sent off to war, daughters who can walk the streets in safety, critics of the powerful who are not jailed or shot, the world’s knowledge and culture available in a shirt pocket. But these are human accomplishments, not cosmic birthrights.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture.”

261. “I think that a failure of statistical thinking is the major intellectual shortcoming of our universities, journalism and intellectual culture.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Gratuitous redundancy makes prose difficult not just because readers have to duplicate the effort of figuring something out, but because they naturally assume that when a writer says two things she means two things, and fruitlessly search for the nonexistent second point.”

262. “Gratuitous redundancy makes prose difficult not just because readers have to duplicate the effort of figuring something out, but because they naturally assume that when a writer says two things she means two things, and fruitlessly search for the nonexistent second point.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Literate people should know how to think about grammar.”

263. “Literate people should know how to think about grammar.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “A writer, like a cinematographer, manipulates the viewer’s perspective on an ongoing story, with the verbal equivalent of camera angles and quick cuts.”

264. “A writer, like a cinematographer, manipulates the viewer’s perspective on an ongoing story, with the verbal equivalent of camera angles and quick cuts.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “At the same time, evolution guarantees that these desires will work at cross-purposes with each other and with those of other people.9 Much of what we call wisdom consists in balancing the conflicting desires within ourselves, and much of what we call morality and politics consists in balancing the conflicting desires among people.”

265. “At the same time, evolution guarantees that these desires will work at cross-purposes with each other and with those of other people.9 Much of what we call wisdom consists in balancing the conflicting desires within ourselves, and much of what we call morality and politics consists in balancing the conflicting desires among people.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Trivers, pursuing his theory of the emotions to its logical conclusion, notes that in a world of walking lie detectors the best strategy is to believe your own lies. You can’t leak your hidden intentions if you don’t think they are your intentions. According to his theory of self-deception, the conscious mind sometimes hides the truth from itself the better to hide it from others. But the truth is useful, so it should be registered somewhere in the mind, walled off from the parts that interact with other people.”

266. “Trivers, pursuing his theory of the emotions to its logical conclusion, notes that in a world of walking lie detectors the best strategy is to believe your own lies. You can’t leak your hidden intentions if you don’t think they are your intentions. According to his theory of self-deception, the conscious mind sometimes hides the truth from itself the better to hide it from others. But the truth is useful, so it should be registered somewhere in the mind, walled off from the parts that interact with other people.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Language is not a protocol legislated by an authority but rather a wiki that pools the contributions of millions of writers and speakers, who ceaselessly bend the language to their needs and who inexorably age, die, and get replaced by their children, who adapt the language in their turn.”

267. “Language is not a protocol legislated by an authority but rather a wiki that pools the contributions of millions of writers and speakers, who ceaselessly bend the language to their needs and who inexorably age, die, and get replaced by their children, who adapt the language in their turn.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “There’s a pattern here. In summing up the language of matter, space, and time, I concluded that they are measured by human goals, not just by a scale, a clock, and a tape measure. Now we see that the fourth major category in conceptual semantics, causality, also cares about our intentions and interests.”

268. “There’s a pattern here. In summing up the language of matter, space, and time, I concluded that they are measured by human goals, not just by a scale, a clock, and a tape measure. Now we see that the fourth major category in conceptual semantics, causality, also cares about our intentions and interests.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Often the pronouns I, me, and you are not just harmless but downright helpful. They simulate a conversation, as classic style recommends, and they are gifts to the memory-challenged reader.”

269. “Often the pronouns I, me, and you are not just harmless but downright helpful. They simulate a conversation, as classic style recommends, and they are gifts to the memory-challenged reader.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “The reason I’m not a neurobiologist but a cognitive psychologist is that I think looking at brain tissue is often the wrong level of analysis. You have to look at a higher level of organization.”

270. “The reason I’m not a neurobiologist but a cognitive psychologist is that I think looking at brain tissue is often the wrong level of analysis. You have to look at a higher level of organization.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Anyone who grew up with Holocaust survivors knows what they had to overcome to tell their stories. For decades after the war they treated their experiences as shameful secrets. On top of the ignominy of victimhood, the desperate straits to which they were reduced could remove the last traces of their humanity in ways they could be forgiven for wanting to forget.”

271. “Anyone who grew up with Holocaust survivors knows what they had to overcome to tell their stories. For decades after the war they treated their experiences as shameful secrets. On top of the ignominy of victimhood, the desperate straits to which they were reduced could remove the last traces of their humanity in ways they could be forgiven for wanting to forget.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “By all measures men are the more violent gender.”

272. “By all measures men are the more violent gender.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “The likelihood that inborn differences are one contributor to social status does not mean that it is the only contributor.”

273. “The likelihood that inborn differences are one contributor to social status does not mean that it is the only contributor.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “I think this confusion leads intellectuals and artists themselves to believe that the elite arts and humanities are a kind of higher, exalted form of human endeavor.”

274. “I think this confusion leads intellectuals and artists themselves to believe that the elite arts and humanities are a kind of higher, exalted form of human endeavor.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Linguistic research has shown that the passive construction has a number of indispensable functions because of the way it engages a reader’s attention and memory.”

275. “Linguistic research has shown that the passive construction has a number of indispensable functions because of the way it engages a reader’s attention and memory.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Inequality is seen as a harbinger of opportunity, a sign that education and other routes to upward mobility might pay off for them and their children.”

276. “Inequality is seen as a harbinger of opportunity, a sign that education and other routes to upward mobility might pay off for them and their children.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “The team that brings clean and abundant energy to the world will benefit humanity more than all of history’s saints, heroes, prophets, martyrs, and laureates combined.”

277. “The team that brings clean and abundant energy to the world will benefit humanity more than all of history’s saints, heroes, prophets, martyrs, and laureates combined.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Eisner, together with the historian Randolph Roth, notes that crime often shoots up in decades in which people question their society and government, including the American Civil War, the 1960s, and post-Soviet Russia.33.”

278. “Eisner, together with the historian Randolph Roth, notes that crime often shoots up in decades in which people question their society and government, including the American Civil War, the 1960s, and post-Soviet Russia.33.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “If you aren’t just brought up in your tribe but interact with other people either directly or vicariously, through journalism and literature, you see what life is like from other points of view and are less likely to demonize them or dehumanize others and more likely to empathize with them.”

279. “If you aren’t just brought up in your tribe but interact with other people either directly or vicariously, through journalism and literature, you see what life is like from other points of view and are less likely to demonize them or dehumanize others and more likely to empathize with them.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “The enlightened response to climate change is to figure out how to get the most energy with the least emission of greenhouse gases. There is, to be sure, a tragic view of modernity in which this is impossible: industrial society, powered by flaming carbon, contains the fuel of its own destruction. But the tragic view is incorrect. Ausubel notes that the modern world has been progressively decarbonizing.”

280. “The enlightened response to climate change is to figure out how to get the most energy with the least emission of greenhouse gases. There is, to be sure, a tragic view of modernity in which this is impossible: industrial society, powered by flaming carbon, contains the fuel of its own destruction. But the tragic view is incorrect. Ausubel notes that the modern world has been progressively decarbonizing.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones.”

281. “As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary contains the following entry: Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.”

282. “Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary contains the following entry: Mind, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “The growth of writing and literacy strikes me as the best candidate for an exogenous change that helped set off the Humanitarian Revolution.”

283. “The growth of writing and literacy strikes me as the best candidate for an exogenous change that helped set off the Humanitarian Revolution.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “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.”

284. “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

Steven Pinker Quote: “Nor is mathematics about a Platonic reality of eternal truths. It is a creation of the human body and senses, growing out of the activities of moving along a path and of collecting, constructing, and measuring objects.”

285. “Nor is mathematics about a Platonic reality of eternal truths. It is a creation of the human body and senses, growing out of the activities of moving along a path and of collecting, constructing, and measuring objects.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “As an experimental psychologist, I have been trained not to believe anything unless it can be demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or sophomores.”

286. “As an experimental psychologist, I have been trained not to believe anything unless it can be demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or sophomores.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker 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.”

287. “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

Steven Pinker Quote: “If you extol reason, then what matters is the integrity of the thoughts, not the personalities of the thinkers.”

288. “If you extol reason, then what matters is the integrity of the thoughts, not the personalities of the thinkers.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “And anyone with a humanistic sensibility cares about you, not in the sense of feeling your pain – human empathy is too feeble to spread itself across billions of strangers – but in the sense of realizing that your existence is cosmically no less important than theirs, and that we all have a responsibility to use the laws of the universe to enhance the conditions in which we all can flourish.”

289. “And anyone with a humanistic sensibility cares about you, not in the sense of feeling your pain – human empathy is too feeble to spread itself across billions of strangers – but in the sense of realizing that your existence is cosmically no less important than theirs, and that we all have a responsibility to use the laws of the universe to enhance the conditions in which we all can flourish.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “The beauty of reason is that it can always be applied to understand failures of reason.”

290. “The beauty of reason is that it can always be applied to understand failures of reason.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Of course, genes can’t pull the levers of our behavior directly. But they affect the wiring and workings of the brain, and the brain is the seat of our drives, temperaments and patterns of thought.”

291. “Of course, genes can’t pull the levers of our behavior directly. But they affect the wiring and workings of the brain, and the brain is the seat of our drives, temperaments and patterns of thought.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Nature is a hanging judge,” goes an old saying. Many tragedies come from our physical and cognitive makeup. Our bodies are extraordinarily improbable arrangements of matter, with many ways for things to go wrong and only a few ways for things to go right. We are certain to die, and smart enough to know it. Our minds are adapted to a world that no longer exists, prone to misunderstandings correctable only by arduous education, and condemned to perplexity about the deepest questions we can ascertain.”

292. “Nature is a hanging judge,” goes an old saying. Many tragedies come from our physical and cognitive makeup. Our bodies are extraordinarily improbable arrangements of matter, with many ways for things to go wrong and only a few ways for things to go right. We are certain to die, and smart enough to know it. Our minds are adapted to a world that no longer exists, prone to misunderstandings correctable only by arduous education, and condemned to perplexity about the deepest questions we can ascertain.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “I don’t think aggression works like thirst or sleep. I think aggression is more elicited by particular situations. I think it can be mitigated.”

293. “I don’t think aggression works like thirst or sleep. I think aggression is more elicited by particular situations. I think it can be mitigated.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “There are but three groups worthy of respect,” wrote Charles Baudelaire, “the priest, the warrior, and the poet. To know, to kill, and to create.”

294. “There are but three groups worthy of respect,” wrote Charles Baudelaire, “the priest, the warrior, and the poet. To know, to kill, and to create.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Violence between the combatants may be called war; violence by the bystander against the combatants may be called law. The Leviathan theory, in a nutshell, is that law is better than war.”

295. “Violence between the combatants may be called war; violence by the bystander against the combatants may be called law. The Leviathan theory, in a nutshell, is that law is better than war.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “If anything, Powerpoint, if used well, would ideally reflect the way we think.”

296. “If anything, Powerpoint, if used well, would ideally reflect the way we think.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “An enormous amount of scientific language is metaphorical. We talk about a genetic code, where code originally meant a cipher; we talk about the solar system model of the atom as though the atom were like a sun and moon and planets.”

297. “An enormous amount of scientific language is metaphorical. We talk about a genetic code, where code originally meant a cipher; we talk about the solar system model of the atom as though the atom were like a sun and moon and planets.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Conventions are unstated agreements within a community to abide by a single way of doing things – not because there is any inherent advantage to the choice, but because there is an advantage to everyone making the same choice.”

298. “Conventions are unstated agreements within a community to abide by a single way of doing things – not because there is any inherent advantage to the choice, but because there is an advantage to everyone making the same choice.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “Humanism may seem bland and unexceptionable – who could be against human flourishing? But in fact it is a distinctive moral commitment, one that does not come naturally to the human mind.”

299. “Humanism may seem bland and unexceptionable – who could be against human flourishing? But in fact it is a distinctive moral commitment, one that does not come naturally to the human mind.”

— Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker Quote: “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.”

300. “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

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