If you are a Hobbesian, your cynical view of human motives suggests you see a need for social control, cherishing hierarchy and accepting the inevitably of war.
— p. 6
Reactive aggression is the "hot" type, such as losing one's temper and lashing out. Proactive aggression is "cold," planned and deliberate.
— p. 9
Character contest often stem from arguments in bars. Two men whose inhibitions have been loosed by alcohol start calling each other hostile names. They more outside to fight, one pulls a weapon, and suddenly a shouting match becomes serious. When the criminologist Marvin Wolfgang conducted the first major study of the reasons for murder in the United States, in 1958, he found that, during a four-year span in Philadelphia, character contests were responsible for 35 percent of the city's homicides. . . .
— p. 26
He could easily have been a criminal. Genes can influence behavior; they rarely determine it.
— p. 46
Our species swings between the deisre for peace and the temptations of power. . . .
— p. 271
Rousseauians say we are a naturally peaceful species corrupted by society. Hobbesians see us as a naturally violent species civilized by society. Both perspectives make sense.
— p. 273
