"I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us-then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls. The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Science fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesAgnostics from the United StatesScience authors from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. 2 : Science and Hope
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"We live in a complex age where many of the problems we face can, whatever their origins, only have solutions that inv…"
"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every s…"
"Imagine, a room, awash in gasoline. And there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has 9,000 matches.…"
"It is important to distinguish between the amount of information and the quality of that information."
"There is a place with four suns in the sky — red, white, blue, and yellow; two of them are so close together that the…"
"It is easy to create an interstellar radio message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from intelligen…"
"We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that alm…"
"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny …"
"In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," a…"
"Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pre…"