The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress.

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.

An exceptional future can only be built on the transformation of the mess I’ve made out of my past, not the elimination of that mess.

As a writer, a poet, you’re not alone in wanting to be alone. Your work is a friendship that never leaves you.

You don't go to school to learn about others.You go to school to learn about yourself.

All right then, I’ll be mad at you on this score, which incidentally is no great misfortune, as things balance out quite well if there’s a little anger for you lurking in one corner of my heart.

The true follower of Christ will not ask, "If I embrace this truth, what will it cost me?" Rather he will say, "This is truth. God help me to walk in it, let come what may!"

The proper balance between individual liberty and central authority is a very ancient problem.

I've always preferred writing in longhand. I've always written first drafts in longhand.

Socialistic practices are now so ingrained in our thinking, so customary, so much a part of our mores, that we take them for granted.

Clouds of flavors and savors float around the thing-in-itself.

The grandchildren should not bear the debts of the grandparents.