Most wars are not fought over shortages of resources such as food and water, but rather over conquest, revenge, and ideology.

The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.

Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we're exposed to an infectious world.

In the speech sound wave, one word runs into the next seamlessly; there are no little silences between spoken words the way there are white spaces between written words. We simply hallucinate word boundaries when we reach the end of a stretch of sound that matches some entry in our mental dictionary.

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

Why is it surprising that scientists might have long hair and wear cowboy boots? In fields like neuroscience, where the events you are recording are so minute, I suspect scientists cultivate a boring, reliable image. A scientist with a reputation for flamboyance might be suspect.

Statisticians tell us that people underestimate the sheer number of coincidences that are bound to happen in a world governed by chance.