Those - Quotes
Neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.
History is the tale told by the victors. Who are the victors? barbaric warriors, mad kings and greedy traitors. Mainly most of our history is made of fables fabricated by those glorious victors.
The hard but just rule is that if the ideas don`t work, you must throw them away. Don`t waste any neurons on what doesn`t work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. Valid criticism is doing you a favor.
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don't understand it.
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.
Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
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.
You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don`t see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.
I don`t differentiate much, except in degree, between people who believe in religion from those who believe in astrology, magic or the supernatural.
The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty, and love. The only demons we must fear are those that lurk inside every human mind: ignorance, hatred, greed, and faith, which is surely the devil's masterpiece.
Those who fear the facts will forever try to discredit the fact-finders.