One of the perks of being a psychologist is access to tools that allow you to carry out the injunction to know thyself.

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.

hope for the best, prepare for the worst

I am a war president.

One dream, will suffice a thousand nightmares.

Privacy is a fundamental human need.

Clearly, if Confederation is to survive another 100 years, Canada must find a national esprit de corps. Cohesion cannot depend indefinitely on hating Toronto.

No matter how great you are, the next great one is already sitting there waiting to take your place.

Every one is degraded, whether aware of it or not, when other people, without consulting him, take upon themselves unlimited power to regulate his destiny.

One person plus one typewriter constitutes a movement.

Whatever I think, whatever I try to do, life might just turn around and... and hitch up its pants and throw me a twenty-dollar bill.

Of course the folk guitar is the one I play very often, but I wanted a more electric sound.