It is true that raids and battles killed a tiny percentage of the numbers that die in modern warfare. But in tribal violence, the clashes are more frequent, the percentage of men in the population who fight is greater, and the rates of death per battle are higher.

Humans are so innately hardwired for language that they can no more suppress their ability to learn and use language than they can suppress the instinct to pull a hand back from a hot surface.

One of the perks of being a psychologist is access to tools that allow you to carry out the injunction to know thyself.

In any dispute, each side thinks it's in the right and the other side is demons.

Today we take it for granted that war happens in smaller, poorer and more backward countries.

As technology accumulates and people in more parts of the planet become interdependent, the hatred between them tends to decrease, for the simple reason that you can't kill someone and trade with him too.

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