Steven Pinker Quote

When people talk, they lay lines on each other, do a lot of role playing, sidestep, shilly-shally and engage in all manner of vagueness and innuendo. We do this and expect others to do it, yet at the same time we profess to long for the plain truth, for people to say what they mean, simple as that. Such hypocrisy is a human universal.

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature (ed. Penguin UK, 2008) - ISBN: 9780141921075