The extreme self-sacrifice characteristic of group-selected species such as ants and bees can often be found among soldiers.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Morality binds people into groups. It gives us tribalism, it gives us genocide, war, and politics. But it also gives us heroism, altruism, and sainthood.

Reciprocity is a deep instinct; it is the basic currency of social life.

The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation - a force for construction and destruction.

Empathy is an antidote to righteousness, although it's very difficult to empathize across a moral divide

Sacredness binds people together, and then blinds them to the arbitrariness of the practice.

The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor.

Human rationality depends critically on sophisticated emotionality. It is only because our emotional brain works so well that our reasoning can work at all.

Diversity is not a virtue. Diversity is a good only to the extent that it advances other virtues, justice or inclusiveness of others who have previously been excluded.

Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into teams … but thereby makes us go blind to objective reality.

Lloyd George could not see a belt without hitting below it.

It’s in the environment of worship that we learn things that go way beyond what our intellect can grasp

I was brought up with considerable discipline, and I was taught it wasn't proper to display certain very private emotions in public.

I think it's important to be with a guy who has a strong sense of integrity. That's how I was raised, and that's something I look for.

The Righteous Salaf were as fearful of their good deeds being squandered, or not being accepted, as the present generation is certain that their neglect would be forgiven.

I'm drawn to people who share that sense of loss. All actors are trying to repair damaged relationships. I think that might be why I've been drawn to other actors.

The poor man wishes to conceal his poverty, and the rich man his wealth: the former fears lest he be despised, the latter lest he be plundered.

Eight grown Americans out of ten dread the coming of the Fourth, with its pandemonium and its perils, and they rejoice when it is gone-if still alive.

If tomorrow will be the end of the world, I will spend my today by looking at the pictures of my past!

Religion is the mortar that binds society together; the granite pedestal of liberty; the strong backbone of the social system.