Religion may have become a codification of morality, and it may fortify it, but it's not the origin of it.

I have often noticed how primate groups in their entirety enter a similar mood. All of a sudden, all of them are playful, hopping around. Or all of them are grumpy. Or all of them are sleepy and settle down. In such cases, the mood contagion serves the function of synchronizing activities.

We are by far the most contradictory of all primates. An animal with this much internal conflict has never lived on this earth.

Competitiveness is just as much a part of our nature as empathy. The ideal, in my view, is a democratic system with a social market economy, because it takes both tendencies into account.

Socialism cannot function, because its economic reward structure is contrary to human nature.

It wasn't God who introduced us to morality; rather, it was the other way around. God was put into place to help us live the way we felt we ought to.

To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.