"The rider evolved to serve to the elephant."
- Jonathan Haidt
"The president is the high priest of what sociologist Robert Bellah calls the 'American civil religion.' The president must invoke the name of God (though not Jesus), glorify America's heroes and histo..."
"Religiosity developed because successful religions made groups more efficient at turning resources into offspring." (including art, cathedrals, cities, earthworks, etc?)"
"The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation — a force for construction and destruction."
"Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason."
"Sports is to war as pornography is to sex."
"But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared ..."
"...civility doesn't require consensus or the suspension of criticism. It is simply the ability to disagree productively with others while respecting their sincerity and decency."
- Ravi Iyer and Jonathan Haidt
"Experiment participants asked to pick which politician looked more confident in a photograph picked the winner of the race two thirds of the time. This phenomenon held up even when they only glimpsed ..."
"Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder. Leon Cass"