Many artists and scholars have pointed out that ultimately art depends on human nature.

Art works because it appeals to certain faculties of the mind. Music depends on details of the auditory system, painting and sculpture on the visual system. Poetry and literature depend on language.

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

All our behaviours are a result of neurophysiological activity in the brain. There is no reason to believe there is any magic going on.

I suspect music is auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots of... our mental faculties.

Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture.

Thanks to the redundancy of language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx vxwxls wxth xn "x" (t gts lttl hrdr f y dn't vn kn whr th vwls r)

Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.

Plants can't very well defend themselves by their behavior, so they resort to chemical warfare, and plants are saturated with toxins and irritants to deter creatures like us who want to eat them.

I would argue that nothing gives life more purpose than the realization that every moment of consciousness is a precious and fragile gift.

Babies are born with the instinct to speak, the way spiders are born with the instinct to spin webs. You don't need to train babies to speak; they just do. But reading is different.

It takes healthy, resilient leaders and employees to achieve great results.

A major character has to come somehow out of the unconscious.

You're never too old to start learning, and you're never too young to aim high and achieve great things.

I was raised with the Bible Belt mentality, and by coming to California, I came out of this dark place and unlearned a lot of things I'd been taught.

Singing is as much an act of worship as is prayer.

Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.

Do not on any account attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once.

Then there's Johnny Pesky, hit me countless number of ground balls and improved my fielding so much.

Then hush thee, my darling, take rest while you may, For strife comes with manhood, and waking with day.

When I was four years old, my mother put me into a school for early music education where you get perfect pitch and harmony and composition.