The essence of a culture of honor is that it does not sanction predatory or instrumental violence, but only retaliation after an insult or other mistreatment.

It Begins with skepticism. The history of human folly, and our own susceptibility to illusions and fallacies, tell us that men and women are fallible.

Since violence is largely a male pastime, cultures that empower women tend to move away from the glorification of violence and are less likely to breed dangerous subcultures of rootless young men.

The psychological components of war have not gone away—dominance, vengeance, callousness, tribalism, groupthink, self-deception

Knights do protect ladies, but only to keep them from being abducted by other knights.

So holding many factors constant, we find that living in a civilization reduces one’s chances of being a victim of violence fivefold.

A sense of solidarity among fifteen-to-thirty-year-olds would be a menace to civilized society even in the best of times.

The one great universal in the study of violence is that most of it is committed by fifteen-to-thirty-year-old men.

Religious people today, compartmentalize their attitude to the Bible. They pay it lip service as a symbol of morality while getting their actual morality from more modern principles.

Today we recognize that the emotion of disgust evolved as an unconscious defense against biological contamination.

Organisms are selected to deploy violence only in circumstances where the expected benefits outweigh the expected costs.

Being a husband or a wife, is already a huge responsibility to shoulder, without adding in the expectations.

I was this 5-7 pudgy kid in high school... I wasn't a popular kid. I was an outcast.

Anything that is unexpected is the X-factor.

You can only be really happy when you become what you really are.

Diligence is not easy, but we can't reach our goals without it.

If you want to play quicker you can start running faster, but it's the ball that decides the speed of the game.

Most great parts for guys in wheelchairs tend to go to actors who walk.

Wherever that man went, he went gratefully.

Life without the courage to die is slavery.