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"Reason is overrated. Many pundits have argued that a good heart and steadfast moral clarity are superior to triangulations of overeducated policy wonks, like the best and brightest and that dragged us into the quagmire of Vietnam. And wasn't it reason that gave us the means to despoil the planet and threaten our species with weapons of mass destruction? In this way of thinking, it's character and conscience, not cold-hearted calculation, that will save us. Besides, a human being is not a brain on a stick. My fellow psychologists have shown that we're led by our bodies and our emotions and use our puny powers of reason merely to rationalize our gut feelings after the fact."
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Explore more quotes by Steven Pinker
"By exploring the political and moral colorings of discoveries about what makes us tick, we can have a more honest science and a less fearful intellectual milieu."
"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."
"But the newest research is showing that many properties of the brain are genetically organized, and don't depend on information coming in from the senses."
"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."
"Why do people believe that there are dangerous implications of the idea that the mind is a product of the brain, that the brain is organized in part by the genome, and that the genome was shaped by natural selection?"
"Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?"
"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."
"As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones."
Exlpore more Philosophy quotes
"War is only one facet of the larger problem of evil which has been with the human race since the beginning . . .This same evil tried to destroy the greatest human being who ever lived, nailing Him to a cross."
"Heaven is a wonderful place and the benefits for the believer are out of this world!"
"God does not want an apartment in our house. He claims our entire home from attic to cellar."
"I won't tell you that the world matters nothing, or the world's voice, or the voice of society. They matter a good deal. They matter far too much. But there are moments when one has to choose between living one's own life, fully, entirely, completely-or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!"
"Thought, if I may put it, is the man behind the possession, appearance, things we like, things we hate and the very epitome of life."
"Talk about God can become dreary and lackluster if God isn't in you. Church can become a drab thing and the Bible an irksome Book if the Holy Spirit does not illuminate your soul with His indwelling presence."
"We should not covet or expect the praise of ungodly men . . . the very fact that they are inclined to persecute us is proof that we are “not of the world."
"A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really..."Do the stars gaze back?" Now, that's a question."
"Heavenly rest will be so refreshing that we will never feel that exhaustion of mind and body we so frequently experience now. I'm really looking forward to that."
"There are crimes which become innocent and even glorious through their splendor, number and excess."
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