Ourselves - Quotes
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
We do not change ourselves, precisely - because we have only ourselves with which to do the changing - but we continually influence, and are influenced by, the world around us and the world within us.
Most of the biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to, because we can't handle, don't want to handle, the conflict that it provokes. But when we dare to break that silence, or when we dare to see, and we create conflict, we enable ourselves and the people around us to do our very best thinking.
Open information is fantastic, open networks are essential. But the truth won't set us free until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it. Openness isn't the end. It's the beginning.
We hunger for significance for signs that our personal existence is of special meaning to the universe. To that end, we are all to eager to deceive ourselves and others to discern a sacred image in a grilled cheese sandwich or find a divine warning in a comet.
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (movie)
We were born into a mystery, one that has haunted us since at least as long as we've been human. We awakened on this tiny world beneath a blanket of stars like an abandoned baby left on a doorstep without a note to explain where we came from, who we are, how our universe came to be, and with no idea how to end our cosmic isolation. We’ve had to figure it all out for ourselves.
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (movie)
Our bodies are programmed to consume fat and sugars because they're rare in nature... In the same way, we're biologically programmed to be attentive to things that stimulate: content that is gross, violent, or sexual and that gossip which is humiliating, embarrassing, or offensive. If we're not careful, we're going to develop the psychological equivalent of obesity. We'll find ourselves consuming content that is least beneficial for ourselves or society as a whole. Just as the factory farming system that produces and delivers our food shapes what we eat, the dynamics of our media shape what information we consume.
By definition, a world constructed from the familiar is a world in which there's nothing to learn. If personalization is too acute, it could prevent us from coming into contact with the mind-blowing, preconception-shattering experiences and ideas that change how we think about the world and ourselves.
Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
Stories are, in one way or another, mirrors. We use them to explain to ourselves how the world works or how it doesn`t work. Like mirrors, stories prepare us for the day to come. They distract us from the things in the darkness.
We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.
If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us.
We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.