Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes how reading allows us to connect with thoughts and ideas from the past.
Carl Sagan highlights the profound impact of reading, suggesting that through literature, we can connect with individuals from the past, experiencing their thoughts and philosophies long after their lives have ended. This ability to transcend time emphasizes the power of books as vessels of knowledge and voices of humanity, allowing us to journey through history and gain insights from those who have come before us.
In practice
Use this quote in a speech about the importance of literacy in education.
Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch's brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment.
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.
I believe people should study a little bit every day. It should become habitual, like brushing your teeth, combing your hair, having a shower or getting dressed. Study the mind, the laws of the universe and paradigms. There's enough information on those subjects to keep a person studying forever.
Bilingualism lets you have your cake and eat it. The new language opens the doors to the best jobs in society; the old language allows you to keep your sense of 'who you are.' It preserves your identity. With two languages, you have the best of both worlds.
Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.
Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.
In the early 1970s in Atlanta, I attended what had formerly been an all-white school but had become a black school after integration and white flight. Perhaps because of this, the teachers created a curriculum that included a focus on African American literature and history year-round, not just in February.
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