Paul Bloom famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

We don't just respond to things as we see them, or feel them, or hear them. Rather, our response is conditioned on our beliefs, about what they really are, what they came from, what they're made of, what their hidden nature is.
-- Paul Bloom

#Motivation #Inspiration #Belief
Families survive the terrible twos because toddlers aren't strong enough to kill with their hands and aren't capable of using lethal weapons.
-- Paul Bloom

#Strong #Hands #Weapons
Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans â€” language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.
-- Paul Bloom

#Men #Animal #Sauce
We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life: a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community.
-- Paul Bloom

#Gratitude #Kindness #Good Life
Empty heads, cognitive science has taught us, learn nothing. The powerful cultural and personal flexibility of our species is owed at least in part to our starting off so well-informed; we are good learners because we know what to pay attention to and what questions are the right ones to ask.
-- Paul Bloom

#Powerful #Attention #Pay
The irrationality of disgust suggests it is unreliable as a source of moral insight. There may be good arguments against gay marriage, partial-birth abortions and human cloning, but the fact that some people find such acts to be disgusting should carry no weight.
-- Paul Bloom

#Gay #People #Abortion
A religion such as Judaism or Catholicism might survive even if it comes to reject a literal account of God creating man and animals. But it cannot survive the rejection of an immaterial soul.
-- Paul Bloom

#God #Men #Animal
If you like somebody, they look better to you. This is why spouses in happy marriages tend to think that their husband or wife looks much better than anyone else thinks that they do.
-- Paul Bloom

#Motivation #Husband #Inspiration
And empathy is narrow; it connects us to particular individuals, real or imagined, but is insensitive to numerical differences and statistical data.
-- Paul Bloom

#Real #Data #Differences
Our best hope for the future [...] lies in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we donâ€™t empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love.
-- Paul Bloom

#Appreciation #Lying #Facts
Traditionally, psychology has been the study of two populations: university freshmen and white rats.
-- Paul Bloom

#Two #White #Psychology
This enthusiasm [for empathy] may be misplaced. Empathy has some unfortunate features â€“ it is parochial, narrow-minded and innumerate. Weâ€™re often at our best when weâ€™re smart enough not to rely on it.
-- Paul Bloom

#Smart #Empathy #May

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