Todd Morgan Jeffries

“It is an essential part of the scientific enterprise to admit ignorance, even to exult in ignorance as a challenge to future conquests. As my friend Matt Ridley has written, ‘Most scientists are bored by what they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on.’ Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a different reason: it gives them something to do. More generally, as I shall repeat in Chapter 8, one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“Now any dogma, primarily based on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“And there was the true artistry of a golden tongue. To be able to speak for an hour without revealing anything. To speak without leaving the impression that your words, by the hundreds, were full of empty air.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men

“You do not want to drink?” “No.” “I am curious, what you said with the gun, that you’d shoot yourself if you drank…” “Yeah.” “You did not drink on those days you said that?” “That’s right.” Satvik paused as if considering his words carefully. “Then why did you not just say that every day?” “That is simple,” I said. “Because then I’d be dead now.”
― Ted Kosmatka, The Flicker Men