Date: September, 1956

Je veux saisir les choses avec l'esprit comme le pénis est saisi par le vagin. [I want to grasp things with the mind the way the penis is grasped by the vagina.]

— Duchamp, Marcel (1887-1968)

Date: November 14, 2010

"It would seem that doing this would be hard enough to cause a brainstorm."

— Sapolsky, Robert (b. 1957)

Date: November 14, 2010

"When we evolved the capacity to be disgusted by moral failures, we didn’t evolve a new brain region to handle it. Instead, the insula expanded its portfolio."

— Sapolsky, Robert (b. 1957)

Date: November 14, 2010

"What are the consequences of the fact that evolution is a tinkerer and not an inventor, and has duct-taped metaphors and symbols to whichever pre-existing brain areas provided the closest fit?"

— Sapolsky, Robert (b. 1957)

Date: March 24, 2011

"It is like finding that cheese depends on chalk--that soul depends on matter."

— McGinn, Colin (b. 1950)

Date: March 24, 2011

"It [neurology] has all the fascination of a horror story--the Jekyll of the mind bound for life to the Hyde of the brain."

— McGinn, Colin (b. 1950)

Date: September 2, 2011

"When we fight an urge, it feels like a strenuous effort, as if there were a homunculus in the head that physically impinged on a persistent antagonist."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)

Date: September 2, 2011

"We speak of exerting will power, of forcing ourselves to go to work, of restraining ourselves and of controlling our temper, as if it were an unruly dog."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)

Date: September 2, 2011

"The 'will' in willpower is not some mysterious 'free will,' a ghost in the machine that can do as it pleases, but a part of the machine itself."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)

Date: September 2, 2011

"The disasters reveal a limitation of the muscle metaphor: certain evolutionarily prepared drives seem to withstand even the most bulked-up powers of will."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)