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Why are empirical questions about how the mind works so weighted down with political and moral and emotional baggage?


Steven Pinker

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PHILIPP MEYER Baggage is just the lies you tell yourself about the way things are. Those lies clutter up and obscu...
ANNETTE VAILLANCOURT She called it baggage. "You're scared to open your suitcases and see what your mother packed.
A.S. KING Beethoven was a deeply political man in the broadest sense of the word. He was not interested in dai...
DANIEL BARENBOIM Living with a stammer is difficult. It's a daily uphill struggle with emotional baggage weighing...
GARETH GATES The problem with the wise is they are so filled with doubts and questions, while fools are so certai...
SHANNON L. ALDER I was never much bothered about moral questions like, 'How could there be a good God when there&...
RICHARD DAWKINS I'm homosexual... How and why are idle questions. It's a little like wanting to know why my eyes are...
JEAN GENET Just as certain selections of music will nourish your physical body and your emotional layer, so oth...
HAL A. LINGERMAN The Bible is filled with intriguing stories about complex and flawed human beings who ponder immense...
DAVID HARSANYI Don’t spend precious time pondering the past. Leave your old emotional baggage behind, embrace the...
VIKRANT PARSAI As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical cla...
STEVEN PINKER I'd ask her questions about why she was there and why she was with an older gentleman.
JOSEPH SPARICO To argue about justice is unavoidably to argue about virtues, about substantive moral and even spiri...
MICHAEL SANDEL To address the UARC from strictly a business perspective does not address the weighty moral and poli...
IKAIKA HUSSEY I think about how language works so I can best explain how language works.
STEVEN PINKER The political system is broken, the economy is broken and so is society. That is why people are so d...
DAVID CAMERON OUR MIND HAS TO CARRY LESS BAGGAGE IF WE ARE ABLE TO FORGIVE AND FORGET !
DR.PRASAD RAJHANS With Led Zeppelin, it has always been that mystique of how the music is done - how it works, why it ...
JIMMY PAGE Greenspan's comments ... [seemed] to suggest that the risks are weighted toward continued weakness i...
ASHA BANGALORE If you are realistic about how our present society works, the economic clout - and a lot of the poli...
PETER SENGE Non violence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for ma...
SOURCE UNKNOWN My cerebral cortex, the gray matter that MIT neuroscientist Steven Pinker likens to 'a large she...
FLOYD SKLOOT Now, the process is documented. When questions come up about why it is taking so long, there is a ba...
INDY CROWLEY In our unpacking process, we must own it before we can disown it!" EL
EVINDA LEPINS If women are the earliest sources of emotional caring and physical nurture for both female and male ...
ADRIENNE RICH As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the...
DAVID BOWIE It's amazing to me that we humans have the intellectual capacity to ask deep questions and to devise...
ALEX FILIPPENKO The thing with Stephen King is that everyone dies, and everyone comes back to life. So you never kno...
NATALIE MARTINEZ I certainly wasn't interested in inserting my own point of view. The questions themselves are intere...
SCOTT DERRICKSON Daring to dream is not difficult, it's making them come true that is hard...
NANETTE L. AVERY Older guys have too much emotional baggage. They’ve already lived their lives.
EDMUND WHITE There are so many interesting questions about Venus. Venus was once quite similar to Earth, but now ...
HAKAN SVEDHEM All these films are very dramatic, very emotional, but they happen to be about some really important...
RACHEL WEISZ Simply put, your pain body is the same thing as your unresolved emotional baggage.
CATHERINE CARRIGAN To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It&#...
AI WEIWEI Time constricts and flattens, you know. It's not evenly weighted. Certain moments linger in the mind...
CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE Why are we outsourcing millions of high-paying jobs to China and India? Why don't we secure the ...
GEORGE NOORY If we don't believe in moral absolutes and then we get into a cultural-political debate, how are...
RANDALL TERRY The questions to ask are, why was the decathlon so popular before, and what happened to make it fade...
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NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON The moral landscape is the framework I use for thinking about questions of morality and human values...
SAM HARRIS He was really trying to be my friend, without all the emotional baggage we both carried - mine still...
DIANA T. SCOTT Flash is about freedom; Flash is about expression. Flash is about just the joy of exuberant running ...
MARK WAID All conviction - and so, necessarily, conversion - is based on the motor and emotional aspects of th...
T. E. HULME It was much more research-oriented. We were much more aimed at understanding how the normal lung wor...
ERIC HOFFMAN I wanted to answer big questions about humanity, about how it is that we understand about the world,...
ALISON GOPNIK Everything passes by, and we are left with just our memories
BEN OAK We need scientists and mathematicians explaining why they are excited about their subjects but also ...
MARCUS DU SAUTOY I've always had questions about how things work and why it was that way. From all kinds of persp...
AYELET ZURER If you don't understand how something
works, never mind: just give up and say God did it. You d...
RICHARD DAWKINS ...the naive forms of Christian moral motivation - bare threats of hell and the bribery of heaven - ...
RICHARD C. CARRIER Live light. Offload internal and external baggage for peace within and peace without.
LAURIE BUCHANAN, PHD You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it. The poor girl...
RAY BRADBURY cultivation of the hard skills, while failing to develop the moral and emotional faculties down belo...
DAVID BROOKS Now we're getting into the sites that are asking specific questions, even down to 'How was this date...
KAREN ADAMS Well-crafted and open-ended questions typically begin with What, Why, When, Who, How, and Where, all...
SUSAN C. YOUNG I try to write stories that are thrilling and full of mystery and funny all at the same time, storie...
WILLIAM LASHNER Empirical debunking cannot reach the deepest fear of the reactionary mind, which is that the state -...
RICK PERLSTEIN There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: W...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Remember that the bad days are not forever, and the trouble which seems so terrible at last.
GEORGE ORWELL That's probably going to be weird and something that you'll have to go through and get over with. Bu...
JAMES PATRICK Let's try and pay more attention to what's around us. Look up. Look down - if only so you don't trip...
ELLEN DEGENERES They lack coping skills. They may have emotional baggage, be on probation, or have attendance issues...
BILL LUTZ Emotional security is how we feel about ourself, how good we feel in relationships with other people...
DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA I think you're going to have to conclude that Chief Justice Moore has more political baggage than po...
JEAN BROWN the legal, political, moral and ethical importance of this vote.
FELIPE PEREZ ROQUE Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think...
AUGUSTE COMTE I'm really not up for answering any questions that start with how, when, where, why or what.
JOHN GREEN We shall be judged according to our works – this is why we are exhorted to do good works. The Bibl...
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER Knowing what's moral is easy, acting on it is the difficult part.
ABHIJIT NASKAR It's hard to experience desire when you're weighted down by concern.
ESTHER PEREL One of the most perplexing political questions of the late 20th century is how new democracies shoul...
STEPHEN KINZER Economic institutions shape economic incentives: the incentives to become educated, to save and inve...
DARON ACEMOğLU Your political reputation affects how likely allies are to trust you, and what kind of deals they...
MIKE SIMPSON Everything has it's own time and place, Transformation becomes effortless when we go with the flow.
SHELLI THOMPSON Empirical evidence collected and analyzed by political scientists demonstrates that judicial pension...
DAVID STRAS Why is it that being offended only has merit when it works to serve the agenda of political correctn...
TROY J. GAINEY Life is like a seesaw you can be up hi one minute then before you know it you can be down low the ne...
GARY F EVANS... Steven will get in after the first two series depending on how things are going.
HUGH NALL I learned how music works dealing with Jermaine Dupri, and I learned how image works dealing with Pu...
USHER Why should our nastiness be the baggage of an apish past and our kindness uniquely human? Why should...
STEPHEN JAY GOULD Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man...
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man...
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. The big questions have to do with moral development because there is not much research,
LINDA JACKSON Steven did a great job working out of jams by keeping the ball down. I can't say enough about his ef...
SCOT MEEKER Keep in mind, our demographics of our state, how it breaks down in terms of political affiliation: o...
LISA MURKOWSKI Don’t ask me those questions! Don’t ask me what life means or how we know reality or why we have...
SUSANNA KAYSEN The main reason why people should care about research in fundamental physics is the same reason they...
DAVID GROSS We have tears in our eyes
As we wave our goodbyes,
We so loved being with you, we three. ROALD DAHL That's the great thing about how 'SVU' works. They work with so many Broadway actors, th...
DAVEED DIGGS Anyone can stop in with their plans and sit down with a reviewer and ask questions that are specific...
ERICA EICHERT Doubts are good. Confusion is excellent. Questions are awesome.
All these are attempts to expan...
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STEVEN PRESSFIELD I'm very fond of the British cinema. I'm a big fan of Martin Campbell and Daniel Craig. I ac...
STEVEN BAUER The world is poised on the cusp of an economic and cultural shift as dramatic as that of the Industr...
STEVEN LEVY I think I look really weird with short hair. So I figured if I've got a mustache, I think it loo...
STEVEN ADAMS The gift that has been given to me says much about our capacity for great compassion and generosity,...
STEVEN COJOCARU Most of the kids that I meet in the street are serious hardened criminals that I meet in the street,...
STEVEN SEAGAL No industry is immune and no occupation is safe. All of us need to begin to think in terms of our ow...
STEVEN PRESSFIELD It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by ...
STEVEN SINOFSKY Courtney Love is a loose cannon. She says what she thinks. She's wild on the red carpet. You get...
STEVEN COJOCARU Black Consciousness seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their ...
STEVEN BIKO When I was on TV in the '80s, I wasn't thinking, 'There's a 10-year-old kid watching...
STEVEN WRIGHT Thanks to decades of accumulated federal budget deficits and, more significantly, imprudent Medicare...
STEVEN RATTNER I have an existential map; it has you are here written all over it.
STEVEN WRIGHT Two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and looked at each other. ...
STEVEN WRIGHT 'The Color Purple' is the kind of character piece that a director like Sidney Lumet could do...
STEVEN SPIELBERG Warner Bros. has talked about going out with low-cost DVDs simultaneously in China because piracy is...
STEVEN SODERBERGH I approached the bulk of my schoolwork as a chore rather than an intellectual adventure.
STEVEN CHU Bloated budgets are ruining Hollywood - these pictures are squeezing all the other types of movies o...
STEVEN SPIELBERG The entertainment world, television, movies, social media, YouTube stuff, we're so bombarded wit...
STEVEN BOCHCO I was born with this. It's a hereditary genetic condition. This is something you can go your who...
STEVEN COJOCARU I think there is a way to be formal and elegant and classy, but more modern. Brad Pitt has been chan...
STEVEN COJOCARU I mean, as long as it doesn't have a bra attached, guys can take a risk and wear stylish things ...
STEVEN TYLER Two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and looked at each other. ...
STEVEN WRIGHT If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you str...
STEVEN WRIGHT A friend of mine once sent me a post card with a picture of the entire planet Earth taken from space...
STEVEN WRIGHT