Jonathan Haidt Quotes

My theory was that what I had to do was make a study of human behavior.

I have an inate curiosity about people.

I try as best I can to enter the realm of nuances of human behavior.

I think for really good-hearted people, that idea of putting yourself in the shoes of a monster to figure out why they acted that way, that's a really frightening idea.

People, and especially theologians, should try to familiarize themselves with scientific ideas. Of course, science is technical in many respects, but there are some very good books that try to set out some of the conceptual structure of science.

The mechanical and social achievements of our day must not blind our eyes to the fact that, in all that relates to man, his nature and aspirations, we have added little or nothing to what has been so finely said by the great men of old.

The science of the mind can only have for its proper goal the understanding of human nature by every human being, and through its use, brings peace to every human soul.

I love, I love human beings, studying them.

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes anothers.

Writers, not psychiatrists, are the true interpreters of the human mind and heart, and we have been at it for a very long time.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

That which today calls itself science gives us more and more information, and indigestible glut of information, and less and less understanding.

It is easier to know men in general, than men in particular.

In order to make characters real - no matter what the character is doing - you have to see yourself as capable of having done that.

According as the man is, so must you humour him.

The mystery at the center of 'Burial Rites' is not who killed whom on the night of March 13, 1828. It is the mystery each of us encounters: Can we every truly know another? Can we ever truly know ourselves?

I'm interested in the human more than I'm interested in building suspense.

I'm insatiably curious about human nature. I feel very lucky that as a writer I get to learn so much about it just to do my job right.

I'm curious about people, and I'm curious about getting to the root of where they might be coming from.

Man's law changes with his understanding of man. Only the laws of the spirit always remain the same.

Science explained people, but could not understand them.

To understand another human being you must gain some insight into the conditions which made him what he is.

The individual in physical science is nothing; in human science everything.

Sympathy is one of the principles most widely rooted in our nature: we rejoice to see ourselves reflected in another; and, perversely enough, we sometimes have a secret pleasure in seeing the sin which dwells in ourselves existing under a deformed and monstrous aspect in another.

The human condition is the human condition, and what we try to do is illuminate the human condition.