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Smith calculated that a pin-maker working alone could make at most one pin a day, whereas in a workshop in which “one man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head,” each could make almost five thousand.

— Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker

Some problems are hard, but it is a mistake to confuse hard problems with problems unlikely to be solved.

— Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker

We human beings seem always to have found it comforting to have someone to took down on—a bottom level of fellow creatures who are very vulnerable, but who can somehow be blamed and punished for all or any troubles. We need this lowest class as much as we need equals to team with and to compete against and superiors to look to for direction and help.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

It shouldn’t be so easy to nudge people toward what might be their own destruction.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

“Every time any god is accepted by a new group of people, that god changes,”

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

To make peace with others, Make peace with yourself: Shape God With generosity And compassion. Minimize harm. Shield the weak. Treasure the innocent. Be true to the Destiny. Forgive your enemies. Forgive yourself.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

Partnership is giving, taking, learning, teaching, offering the greatest possible benefit while doing the least possible harm. Partnership is mutualistic symbiosis. Partnership is life.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

When we have no difficult, long-term purpose to strive toward, we fight each other. We destroy ourselves. We have these chaotic, apocalyptic periods of murderous craziness.”

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

To shape God With wisdom and forethought, To benefit your world, Your people, Your life, Consider consequences, Minimize harm Ask questions, Seek answers, Learn, Teach.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

It’s always been much easier to make war than to make peace.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

He wants to take us all back to some magical time when everyone believed in the same God, worshipped him in the same way, and understood that their safety in the universe depended on completing the same religious rituals and stomping anyone who was different. There was never such a time in this country. But these days when more than half the people in the country can’t read at all, history is just one more vast unknown to them.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

Prodigy is, in its essence, adaptability and persistent, positive obsession. Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

Jarret’s supporters are more than a little seduced by Jarret’s talk of making America great again. He seems to be unhappy with certain other countries. We could wind up in a war. Nothing like a war to rally people around flag, country, and great leader.

— Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler