Matt Ridley Quotes

The truth is that from birth on we are, to one extent or another, a fairly sensual species.

Economic man and sensual man are not suppressible.

Human nature fascinates me.

Every man has a pattern - I don't care what they say. They don't like to admit it, but they do.

All human behavior, all human motivations, all man’s hopes and fears, were heavily colored and largely controlled by mankind’s tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction.

Evolution leads the way through desire.

The task of evolutionary psychology is not to weigh in on human nature, a task better left to others. It is to add the satisfying kind of insight that only science can provide: to connect what we know about human nature with the rest of our knowledge of how the world works, and to explain the largest number of facts with the smallest number of assumptions.

It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.

I've probably understood men too well. I realise they are predatory by nature, and I have a certain acceptance of the male animal.

Politics is applied biology.

Apart from anything else, I am designed by evolution, like we all are: if we see a little thing like that, big eyes, tiny nose, we go 'aaah'. That's what evolution does. We are programmed to do that. So to find babies the most amazing, isn't surprising, I don't think.

We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.

Somewhere between the intellectual idea of why we're attracted to certain things and the pragmatic reality is some form of ever-evolving truth.

Man is primarily governed by passion and instinct.

I think that genetically we're programmed to battle each other.

Biology always beats will power.

My point of view is that men are basically animals, and I'm okay with that.

Evolution is an indispensable component of any satisfying explanation of our psychology.

Two things control men's nature, instinct and experience.

I can't think of anyone who is up on evolutionary psychology and related areas who is deluded enough to be called a utopian.

There is a great deal of human nature in man.

People sense that our reaction to phenomena such as epidemics or religious war is not that different to how we reacted to plagues or to battles a millennia ago.

It is futile to go against human nature.

When you start to think about the drives that humans have, I think sometimes we find we are simpler than we thought and more easily manipulated.

Evolutionary psychology offers a parsimonious framework for understanding which domains are likely to yield sex differences and, if so, in which direction.