I'm not a pacifist. I think the suffering of innocent people can be a catalyst for moral action. But empathy puts too much weight on the scale in favor of war. Empathy can really lead to violence.

Families survive the terrible twos because toddlers aren't strong enough to kill with their hands and aren't capable of using lethal weapons.

Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.

Our best hope for the future [...] lies in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love.

A religion such as Judaism or Catholicism might survive even if it comes to reject a literal account of God creating man and animals. But it cannot survive the rejection of an immaterial soul.

I argue that we should be kind, we should be compassionate, and we should definitely be reasonable and rational, but that empathy leads us astray.

The fact that something can be used for good isn't necessarily a knockdown argument for it.

Empathy zooms you in on an individual and, as a result, it's narrow, it's innumerate, it's racist, it's very biased.

The effects of Twitter and Facebook and all those things on people's psychologies is a really interesting question to which nobody knows the answer.

I love teaching. I wouldn't take a job that didn't include it.

What I mean by "empathy" is putting yourself in other people's shoes, feeling what they feel.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascendThe brightest heaven of invention!

Being lost is the way, how else can you be found?

Now where people are - at least the people I talk to - they are focused on issues of trust. Accountability also comes up, to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

You all know," said the Guide, "that security is mortals' greatest enemy.

It is essential that all Americans take the time to honor and remember those individuals who gave their lives in defense of our liberty.

The social brain is in its natural habitat when we're talking with someone face-to-face in real time.

You cannot be pro-jobs and anti-business at the same time. You cannot love employment and hate employers.

Leaders use story to author the future.

When people lose faith in the idea, you have to let them go, because they start to undermine it for everyone else.