Technology, ideology, and social and cultural changes periodically throw out new forms of violence for humanity to contend with.

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.

Love will find you when you least expect it to. It will come unannounced and find you in an unusual moment on the strangest of days!

While she was light and sunshine, he was nothing but clouds and darkness.

You don't get what you want from investing, you get what you deserve.

We heard no other sounds. We met no other people. We saw only two bright red birds leap startled from the center of the meadow and dart into the woods.

I feel so lucky to have done so many things that I love in the past few years so I'm just going to keep trying to do them.

I was raised on a little farm about 12 miles out of Portsmouth, Ohio.

It is easier for me to take ten good pictures in an airplane bathroom than in the gardens at Versailles.

One must learn to give up momentary, uncertain and destructive pleasure for delayed, restrained, but dependable pleasure.

I hate hearing about actors who don't like the show. There are so many actors out there who'd give their right arm for what I'm getting to do.

Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, whatsoever it may be, by an early example of uprightness, and a childish training in honor.