Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the idea that exploration and curiosity are fundamental to human nature.
Carl Sagan emphasizes the inherent nature of humanity to explore and seek knowledge. No matter how much we learn or where we go, we continue to possess a wanderer's spirit, always looking for new experiences and understanding in the vast universe around us.
In practice
During a graduation speech to inspire students to embrace their adventurous spirit.
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.
...Those laws are within the grasp of the human mind. God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts... and if piety allow us to say so, our understanding is in this respect of the same kind as the divine, at least as far as we are able to grasp something of it in our mortal life.
A person's a person, no matter how small.
A conservative, I take it, is a man who despises vulgarity; but the argument which is concerned exclusively with calculations of success, and is based on blindness to the nobility of the effort, is vulgar.
Communication across the revolutionary divide is inevitably partial.
Our ancient forebears who learned to synchronize the movements of dance were those with the capacity to predict what others around them were going to do and signal to others what they wanted to do next. These forms of communication may well have helped lead to the formation of larger human communities.
Ah! sinner, remember this, there is no way on earth effectually to be rid of the guilt, filth, and power of sin, but by believing in a Saviour. It is not resolving, it is not complaining, it is not mourning, but believing, that will make thee divinely victorious over that body of sin that to this day is too strong for thee, and that will certainly be thy ruin, if it be not ruined by a hand of faith.
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