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Alternatives Quote by Carl Sagan

“Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don't conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything - new ideas and established wisdom.”

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More by Carl Sagan

It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so…

The prediction of nuclear winter is drawn not, of course, from any direct experience with the consequences of global nuclear war, but rather from…

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The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no…

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“Telepathy’ literally means to feel at a distance, just as ‘telephone’ is to hear at a distance and ‘television’ is to see at a distance. The word suggests the communication not of thoughts but of feelings, emotions. Around a quarter of all Americans believe they’ve experienced something like telepathy. People who know each other very well, who live together, who…

“On the scale of worlds—to say nothing of stars or galaxies—humans are inconsequential, a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump…

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Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies,…

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In our time, we have sifted the sands of Mars, we have established a presence there, we have fulfilled a century of dreams!

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“[ When a religious couple wrote to Sagan about fulfilled prophecies, he wrote back in May 1996 :] If ‘fulfilled prophecy’ is your criterion,…

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Don't judge everyone else by your own limited experience.

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“Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our…

We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is…

A tiny blue dot set in a sunbeam. Here it is. That's where we live. That's home. We humans are one species and this…

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More Alternatives quotes

I am very sad that some designers are still using real fur when the fake alternatives are so effective and so easily obtainable.

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The prophet who fails to present a bearable alternative and yet preaches doom is part of the trap that he postulates. Not only does he picture us caught in a tremendous man-made or God-made trap from which there is no escape, but we must also listen to him day in, day out, describe how the trap is inexorably closing. To…

I strongly reject any conceptual scheme that places our options on a line, and holds that the only alternative to a pair of extreme…

Stephen Jay Gould

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Conventional agriculture has never succeeded in feeding the world, and it's never produced anything good to eat. For the future, we need to look…

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[When asked how it felt to be a female prime minister:] I don't know: I've never experienced the alternative.

Margaret Thatcher

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If one could have a wish, or an alternative life, I would've liked to have been John Lennon.

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THE REAL PURPOSE OF HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM IS TO MAKE NATIONAL SOCIALISM AN ACCEPTABLE POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE AGAIN.

Harold Covington

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Men since the beginning of time have sought peace...military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn have failed, leaving the only…

Douglas MacArthur

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Buddhist words such as compassion and emptiness don't mean much until we start cultivating our innate ability simply to be there with pain with an open heart and the willingness not to instantly try to get ground under our feet. For instance, if what we're feeling is rage, we usually assume that there are only two ways to relate to…

The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of…

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Maximise the alternative forms in which a user might receive a service, and the alternative sources of supply.

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In the last few years, the very idea of telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is dredged up only…

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