Steven Pinker Quotes

An ideology is a complex of ideas or notions which represents itself to the thinker as an absolute truth for the interpretation of the world and his situation within it; it leads the thinker to accomplish an act of self-deception for the purpose of justification, obfuscation and evasion in some sense or other

Ideology is like breath: you never smell your own.

Ideology... is a kind of contemporary mythology, a realm which has purged itself of ambiguity and alternative possibility.

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true.

People see things in the opposite way that I do. There are places that spirit, soul and emotion reach.

The premise of my book is that everyone is a bit ideological to some extent. Everyone comes from a ideological perspective.

Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he becomes.

Stories are one of the most powerful forces of persuasion available to us, especially stories that fit in with our view of what the world should be like. Facts can be contested. Stories are far trickier. I can dismiss someone's logic, but dismissing how I feel is harder.

As soon as you look at the world through an ideology, you are finished. No reality fits ideology.

Since ideology is part of the human personality, it deserves a place in the kingdom of eternal truths.

What an ideology is is a conceptual framework with the way people deal with reality. Everyone has one. You have to, to exist you need an ideology. The question is whether it is accurate or not.

For me, ideology is defined only by how the coordinates of your meaningful experience of the world, and your place within society, relate to the basic tensions and antagonisms of social orders.

For Conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing.

[It's] the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.

Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence.

Not to have a correct political point of view is like having no soul.

Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them.

Ideology is a partial truth masquerading as the whole truth.

A creed is an ossified metaphor.

What people really believe doesn't feel like a BELIEF, it feels like the way the world IS.

I am concerned with a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.

You can only see what you believe—nothing else is possible.

Nobody dares to solve the problems-because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world.

Liberals hate religion because politics is a religion substitute for liberals and they can't stand the competition.