A Quote by Steven Pinker

The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.

Steven Pinker

Quote Topics

Happiness Against Argument Blank Blank Slate Desires Doctrine Dream Human Human Nature Humans Innate Liberty Life May Nature Pursuit Pursuit Of Happiness Recognition Slate Strongest Totalitarian Totalitarianism Universal

Quote Author

Steven Pinker
Canadian - Scientist
Born: September 18, 1954

When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn't mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. In hard work is happiness.

David McCullough

The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.

Friedrich August von Hayek

We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt.

Ayn Rand

...[sacred] doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest.

Thomas Aquinas

Sheldon Vanauken wrote that the strongest argument for Christianity is Christians, when they are drawing life from God. The strongest argument against Christianity? Also Christians, when they become exclusive, self-righteous, and complacent.

John Ortberg

I love the Constitution. But it's still a document, meant to protect human beings and ensure their life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

S.E. Cupp

The world wants to like America. The guiding values that Thomas Jefferson articulated so eloquently - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - resonate strongly around the world, transcending countless superficial and cultural differences, not because these are American values, but because they are universal values, embedded in the human heart.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

It wouldn't take us long to discover the substance of that dream. It is found in those majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, words lifted to cosmic proportions: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God, Creator, with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. This is a dream. It's a great dream.

Unknown

[T]he liberty, the unalienable, indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity of human nature, the grandeur and glory of the public, and the universal happiness of individuals, were never so skillfully and successfully consulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the common law of England.

John Adams

What sets human beings apart from animals is not the pursuit of happiness, which occurs all across the natural world, but the pursuit of meaning, which is unique to humans.

Roy Baumeister

Philadelphia, the foundation of freedom, liberty and democracy, I still believe in the idea of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Michael Nutter

For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants.

Jimmy Carter

What Washington desperately needs now are citizen legislators that are dedicated to leading a free people and to maintain our God-given right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Ralph Norman

I have tried at times to place humans in perspective against the vastness of universal time and space. I have been concerned with where we, as a race, may be going and what may be our purpose in the universal scheme — if we have a purpose. In general, I believe we do, and perhaps an important one.

Clifford D. Simak

A human life is defined by its relationship with others: by its duty to its species. In the face of this duty, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are meaningless. What you call individual rights are merely the cultural fantasy of a failed civilization.