[Napoleon deployed] every available resource to inflict all-out defeats on [his] enemies.
Steven PinkerAll over the world, belief in the supernatural has authorised the sacrifice of people to propitiate bloodthirsty gods, and the murder of witches for their malevolent powers.
Steven PinkerThe Rights Revolutions too have given us ideals that educated people today take for granted but that are virtually unprecedented in human history, such as that people of all races and creeds have equal rights, that women should be free from all forms of coercion, that children should never, ever be spanked, that students should be protected from bullying, and that thereโs nothing wrong with being gay. I donโt find it at all implausible that these are gifts, in part, of a refined and widening application of reason.
Steven PinkerHuman nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.
Steven PinkerIn many Muslim countries, witchcraft is not only on the books as a crime, but is commonly prosecuted. In 2009, for example, Saudi Arabia convicted a man for carrying a phone booklet with characters in an alphabet from his native Eritrea, which the police interpreted as occult symbols. He was lashed three hundred times and imprisoned for more than three years.
Steven Pinker