Steven Pinker Quotes

I have little time for sincerity.

I don't want to lie. I dislike dishonesty. And I work in Hollywood, a town and a business that relies on a lot of falsehoods with people hiding behind different facades. I don't want to be a part of that.

You have to steer a course between not appalling people, but at the same time not misleading them.

I abhor hypocrisy.

Put away from you a dissembling mouth.

Not every time there's a disagreement is somebody lying.

I would despise myself if I thought that I was procuring your votes by concealing my opinions, and by avowing one set of principles in one part of the state and a different set in another.

Flattery makes friends and truth makes enemies

If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.

Language is a tool for concealing the truth. If we could read each other's minds, this would be a horror show.

You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the size of your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear.

Those who don't say what they mean will live and die by their own sword.

Whatever distrust we may have of the sincerity of those who converse with us, we always believe they will tell us more truth than they do to others.

No one tells the truth to people they don't actually know, and if they do it is a horrible trait. Everyone wants something smaller, something neater than the truth.

It is one of the peculiar truths of life that people often say things that they know full well are ridiculous.

I don't like people lying to me. I don't like people who don't return my calls. I don't like people who won't give me a straight answer. I don't like those kinds of people, and I've been vocal about it.

I would seriously question whether anybody is really foolish enough to really say what they mean. Sometimes I think that civilization as we know it would kind of break down if we all were completely honest.

It's real easy to manufacture what you think the people want to hear. But that's not very honest.

I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

I am not honest.

It's so much easier to tell people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.