A Quote by Steven Pinker

If you give people literacy, bad ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and lessons will accumulate. — © Steven Pinker
If you give people literacy, bad ideas can be attacked and experiments tried, and lessons will accumulate.
You can take lessons to become almost anything: flying lessons, piano lessons, skydiving lessons, acting lessons, race car driving lessons, singing lessons. But there's no class for comedy. You have to be born with it. God has to give you this gift.
I tried a little of everything when I was little. I tried karate, I tried ballet, I tried piano lessons and singing lessons... I was a pretty normal kid, for the most part.
The commitment to literacy was constant on the part of African Americans. And the percentages of literacy by the end of the century, by 1900, basic literacy has galloped ahead. People believed that education, of course, was the turnstile for advancement.
Is it possible for the rose to say, "I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad?" Or is it possible for the lamp to say, "I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people"? Or can a tree say, "I'll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad"? These are images of what love is about.
I think visual literacy and media literacy is not without value, but I think plain old-fashioned text literacy and mathematical literacy are much more powerful and flexible ways to organize your mind.
Without courage we will simply accumulate a collection of good ideas and regrets.
I've actually tried to give Brett Ratner dance lessons, but he thinks he already knows how to.
For almost a century since 1918, the centralised nation-state has been the world's default political form. Its various experiments in industrialisation, urbanisation, mass literacy and consumerism have brought more people into public life.
Scientific literacy is one of the underpinnings of everything I do. It's why I work with schools. It's why I teach at university. I do a lot of outreach to try and improve general scientific literacy, but the core of all scientific literacy is just literacy.
If you get health, then you have opportunity for literacy. Health first, then literacy. Once you have literacy, then you have a chance to bring in the new tools of communication. Let people reach out and have access to the latest advances.
The measure of your life will not be in what you accumulate, but in what you give away.
The only bad ideas are the ones never tried.
When our embassy is attacked in Benghazi by terrorists and there is no response, you get more bad behavior. When Russia invades Ukraine and there is no response, you get more bad behavior. When Syria crosses the red line and there is no response, you get more bad behavior. When Iran launches tests of ballistic missiles and there is no response, you get more bad behavior. When North Korea attacks Sony Pictures and there is no response, you get more bad behavior. In other words, Mrs. Clinton, you cannot lead from behind. We must respond when we are attacked or provoked.
Global warming is already acting upon us with an accelerated feedback and compounded effect that may be irreversible! We do not have eons or centuries or many decades. Most of us alive today may not even have the luxury of saying 'Après moi, le déluge' because we will be around to experience it ourselves. And if you think it will be 'interesting' or 'exciting,' ask the tsunami survivors if that's how they felt. This time the plutocratic drive to 'accumulate, accumulate, accumulate' may take all of us down, once and forever.
The people that are around me that give me ideas that I pass along or we try, the one thing I never do, I never give credit to anybody but myself. So I take all of the ideas. So everybody thinks that all of the ideas are mine.
I would say except when I have been attacked the black community has seldom seen fit to even mention the gay aspect. And since when I have been attacked I have usually been defended by the black community, I would say that the black newspapers have played it very straight. If I was attacked they simply published that I was attacked, if I was defended they simply said I had been defended. But I don't think they have taken any effort at maligning me or maligning gays or making any effort to give to people anything that wasn't news.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!