Newton's third law is difficult, even for Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker writes in Stuff of thought p.224

In Newtonian physics an action and its reaction are opposite and equal, so a pair of touching objects that are at rest, or are moving at a constant velocity, must exert equal forces on each other (if one force were stronger, the two would accelerate in that direction).

This is wrong. Even when they are accelerating, the forces are equal. Please study Newton's laws of motion!