spencer > spencer's Quotes

“The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“I have a foreboding of America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time–when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all of the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; with our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

And when the dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites now down to 10 seconds or less, lowest-common-denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is in “contact” with extraterrestrials. I am invited to “ask them anything.” And so over the years I’ve prepared a little list of questions. The extraterrestrials are very advanced, remember. So I ask things like, “Please provide a short proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem.” Or the Goldbach Conjecture. And then I have to explain what these are, because extraterrestrials will not call it Fermat’s Last Theorem. So I write out the simple equation with the exponents. I never get an answer. On the other hand, if I ask something like “Should we be good?” I almost always get an answer.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“…better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“The business of scepticism is to be dangerous. Scepticism challenges established institutions. If we teach everybody, including, say, high school students, habits of sceptical thought, they will probably not restrict their scepticism to UFOs, aspirin commercials and 35,000-year-old channellees. Maybe they’ll start asking awkward questions about economic, or social, or political, or religious institutions. Perhaps they’ll challenge the opinions of those in power. Then where would we be?”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“Pseudoscience speaks to powerful emotional needs that science often leaves unfulfilled. It caters to fantasies about personal powers we lack and long for.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“You're a bitter man," said Candide.
That's because I've lived," said Martin.”
― Voltaire, Candide

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”
― Voltaire

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.”
― Voltaire

“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."

(Letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville, May 16, 1767)”
― Voltaire

“God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh.”
― Voltaire

“Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”
― Voltaire

“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
― Voltaire

“Prejudices are what fools use for reason.”
― Voltaire

“The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.”
― Voltaire

“No opinion is worth burning your neighbor for.”
― Voltaire

“History never repeats itself. Man always does.”
― Voltaire

“It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.”
― Voltaire

“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”
― Voltaire

“Religion began when the first scoundrel met the first fool.”
― Voltaire

“There is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night.”
― Voltaire

“All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.”
― Voltaire