So holding many factors constant, we find that living in a civilization reduces one’s chances of being a victim of violence fivefold.

Steven Pinker
About This Quote

This quote is taken from the book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature," by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. It's not a new idea. The author argues that in the past it was much easier to be a victim of violence, but that in our modern world, humans are much less likely to suffer violence at the hands of their fellow humans.

Source: The Better Angels Of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Some Similar Quotes
  1. If somebody says 'I love you' to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol holder requires? 'I love you, too'. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

  2. Physical love is unthinkable without violence. - Milan Kundera

  3. Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. - Ernst F. Schumacher

  4. Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander. - Yehuda Bauer

  5. We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we... - Thich Nhat Hanh

More Quotes By Steven Pinker
  1. Trivers, pursuing his theory of the emotions to its logical conclusion, notes that in a world of walking lie detectors the best strategy is to believe your own lies. You can’t leak your hidden intentions if you don’t think they are your intentions. According to...

  2. The scriptures present a God who delights in genocide, rape, slavery, and the execution of nonconformists, and for millennia those writings were used to rationalize the massacre of infidels, the ownership of women, the beating of children, dominion over animals, and the persecution of heretics...

  3. Challenge a person's beliefs, and you challenge his dignity, standing, and power. And when those beliefs are based on nothing but faith, they are chronically fragile. No one gets upset about the belief that rocks fall down as opposed to up, because all sane people...

  4. We will never have a perfect world, but it’s not romantic or naïve to work toward a better one.

  5. Science is thus a paradigm for how we ought to gain knowledge–not the particular methods or institutions of science but its value system, namely to seek to explain the world, to evaluate candidate explanations objectively, and to be cognizant of the tentativeness and uncertainty of...

Related Topics