In accounts of men in battle, there is an incredible adrenaline rush from group-versus-group conflict. The fervor and passion of partisans is clearly rewarding; and if it's rewarding, it involves dopamine; and if it involves dopamine, then it is potentially addictive.

People who devote their lives to studying something often come to believe that the object of their fascination is the key to understanding everything.

If you have high IQ, you're really good at finding post-hoc arguments to support your feelings of truthiness.

Individuals who could not form cooperative alliances, on average, died sooner and left fewer children. And so we are the descendants of the successful cooperators.

The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor.

Happiness is not the shallow state of feeling pleased and chipper all the time. Happiness is the state of a human being that has achieved cross-level coherence within herself, and between herself and the people, challenges, and institutions around her. Happiness comes from between.

Congress is full of good, decent, smart people who have devoted their lives to public service.