Quotessence
Home / Authors / Matt Ridley
Matt Ridley

Matt Ridley Quotes

Journalist

Filter quotes by topic

AllEvolutionGenesHumansIfsPeopleFuelGeneticsIdeasLyingPressure

Famous Matt Ridley Quotes

“Our minds have been built by selfish genes, but they have been built to be social, trustworthy and cooperative. That is the paradox this book has tried to explain. Human beings have social instincts. They come into the world equipped with predispositions to learn how to cooperate, to discriminate the trustworthy from the treacherous, to commit themselves to be trustworthy, to earn good reputations, to exchange goods and information, and to divide labour.”

TrustCooperationHuman EvolutionNature Versus NurtureSociality
Book:The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation
Create image

“Good grief. Here is an eighteenth-century, middle class Scottish professor [Adam Smith] saying that morality is an accidental by-product of the way human beings adjust their behavior towards each other as they grow up; saying that morality is an emergent phenomenon that arises spontaneously among human beings in a relatively peaceful society; saying that goodness does not need to be taught, let alone associated with the superstitious belief that it would not exist but for the divine origin of an ancient Palestinian carpenter.”

EvolutionMoralityAdam Smith
Book:Еволюция на всичко
Create image

“It is the assumption of this book that there is a typical human nature. It is the aim of this book to seek it. Just like a surgeon, a psychiatrist can make all sorts of basic assumptions when a patient lies down upon the couch. He can assume that the patient knows what it means to love, to envy, to trust, to think, to speak, to fear, to smile, to bargain, to covet, to dream, to remember, to sing, to quarrel, to lie. The 'smile' of a baboon is a threat; the smile of a man is a sign of pleasure: it is human nature, the world over.”

ThinkingKnowsMenWorldHumansMeanBookDreamRememberLyingSpeakPleasureHuman NatureEvolutionAimAssumingThreatPatientEnvyAssumptionTypicalQuarrelsCouchesPsychiatristBargainsSurgeonsBaboons
Author:Matt Ridley
Create image

“The average Mexican lives longer now than the average Briton did in 1955. Infant mortality is lower today in Nepal than it was in Italy in 1951. The proportion of Vietnamese living on less than $2 a day has dropped from 90 per cent to 30 per cent in twenty years. The rich have got richer, but the poor have done even better.”

YearsDoneTodayPoorRichTwentiesAverageProportionMortalityCentsInfantMexicanLong LifeLiving OnVietnameseNepalBritonsInfant Mortality
Author:Matt Ridley
Create image

“Note even Jonathan Swift would dare to write a satire in which politicians argued that - in a world where species are vanishing and more than a billion people are barely able to afford to eat - it would somehow be good for the planet to clear rain-forests to grow palm oil, or give up food-crop land to grow biofuels, solely so that people could burn fuel derived from carbohydrate rather than hydrocarbons in their cars, thus driving up the price of food for the poor. Ludicrous is too weak a word for this heinous crime.”

PeopleWorldGivingWritingAbleGrowsPoorClearLandCarCrimePlanetsPoliticianGiving UpRainWeakNotesSpeciesDareOilBe GoodBillionsDrivingForestsFuelSatirePalmsCropsVanishingCarbohydratesBiofuelsHydrocarbonsHeinous CrimesPalm Oil
Author:Matt Ridley
Create image

“Ocean acidification looks suspiciously like a back-up plan by the environmental pressure groups in case the climate fails to warm: another try at condemning fossil fuels. [...] Even if the world warms as much as the consensus expects, the net harm still looks small alongside the real harm now being done by preventable causes; and if it does warm this much, it will be because more people are rich enough to afford to do something about it.”

PeopleIfsWorldTryingLooksDoeStillsRealDoneEnoughCausesCasesRichPlansFailingGroupsOceanPressureClimateEnvironmentalWarmHarmWar Of The WorldsFuelFossilsConsensusFossil FuelBeing DoneCondemningPressure GroupsOcean Acidification
Author:Matt Ridley
Create image

“Because it is a monopoly, government brings inefficiency and stagnation to most things it runs; government agencies pursue the inflation of their budgets rather than the service of their customers; pressure groups form an unholy alliance with agencies to extract more money from taxpayers for their members. Yet despite all this, most clever people still call for government to run more things and assume that if it did so, it would somehow be more perfect, more selfless, next time.”

PeopleIfsStillsGovernmentRunningFormNextPerfectGroupsMembersPressureAssumingCustomersCleverPursueDespiteBudgetsAgencySelflessMore MoneyNext TimeInflationMonopolyTaxpayersAlliancesStagnationInefficiencyGovernment AgenciesPressure GroupsMost Clever
Author:Matt Ridley
Create image