Jonathan Haidt Quotes

Let me say it diplomatically: Most religions are tribal to some degree.

Liberals are my friends, my colleagues, my social world.

Economic issues are just as much moral issues as social issues.

If I have a mission in life, it is to convince people that everyone is morally motivated - everyone except for psychopaths.

science is a smorgasbord, and google will guide you to the study that's right for you.

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

The extreme self-sacrifice characteristic of group-selected species such as ants and bees can often be found among soldiers.

The great conservative insight is that order is really hard to achieve. It’s really precious, and it’s really easy to lose.

It only takes twenty generations of selective breeding to create large differences or appearance and behavior in other mammals.

If you think half of America votes badly because they are stupid or religious, you are trapped in a matrix ... Take the red pill, learn some moral psychology and step outside the moral matrix.

Religious experiences are real and common, whether or not God exists, and these experiences often make people whole and at peace.

I did say that in-group, authority and purity are necessary for the maintenance of order, but I would never give them a blanket endorsement.

Human thinking depends on metaphor. We understand new and complex things in relation to the things we already know... once you pick a metaphor it will guide your thinking.

If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you.

The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation — a force for construction and destruction.

...civility doesn't require consensus or the suspension of criticism. It is simply the ability to disagree productively with others while respecting their sincerity and decency.

Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder. Leon Cass

It is not clear that married people are, on average, happier than those who never married, because unhappily married people are the least happy group of all and they pull down the average.

Loyalty, respect for authority and some degree of sanctification create a more binding social order that places some limits on individualism and egoism.

The mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider's job is to serve the elephant.

Creating gods who can see everything, and who hate cheaters and oath breakers, turns out to be a good way to reduce cheating and oath breaking.

When opponents of evolution object that human beings are not mere apes, they are correct. We are also part bee.

With all foreign travel, you learn as much about where you're from as what you're visiting.

Reasoning can take you wherever you want to go.

We live in the tension between neophillia, or attraction to new things, and neophobia, or fear of new things.

Focusing on effective leadership without focusing on a willingness to follow is like studying clapping by studying only the left hand.

The advantage which disciplined soldiers have over undisciplined hordes follows cheaply from the confidence which each man feels in his comrades. Charles Darwin

Cultural change works orders of magnitude faster then genetic change. Stephen Jay Gould

Morality often involves tension within the group motivated by competition between different groups.

Gossip is a policeman and a teacher. Without it, there would be chaos and ignorance.

Religiosity developed because successful religions made groups more efficient at turning resources into offspring." (including art, cathedrals, cities, earthworks, etc?)