Taken

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: 

If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, 

we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. 

We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. 

The bamboozle has captured us. 

It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, 

even to ourselves, 

that we’ve been taken. 

Once you give a charlatan power over you, 

you almost never get it back.

— Carl Sagan 'The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark'

The Non-Random Selection Of Ideational Variation

At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes — an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless sceptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.

 — Carl Sagan

Dead White Males

Mysterious Ways

God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence.
You simply turn your mind off and say God did it.
 — Carl Sagan

Countertruism

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Just The Best We Have

Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge.
It's just the best we have.
In this respect, as in many others, it's like democracy.
— Carl Sagan 'The Demon-Haunted World'

'I Think' Vs 'I Want'

Because science carries us toward an understanding of how the world is, rather than how we would wish it to be, its findings may not in all case be immediately comprehensible or satisfying.
— Carl Sagan 'The Demon-Haunted World'

The Celebration Of Ignorance

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the thirty second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

— Carl Sagan 'The Demon-Haunted World'

Thirst Quenching

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
— Carl Sagan 'The Demon-Haunted World'