“I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral: The intellectual thing, I should want to say to them, is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only ‘what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out?’ Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think could have beneficent social effects, if it were believed. But look only and solely at: ‘what are the facts?’ That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say.”
“The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple. I should say: Love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact, that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way. And if we are to live together and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.”
“Political rightness, if we can imagine such a thing, might begin with allowing all human beings to exist equally in dignity, in rights, and also with the language they feel is adequate to their experience of the world around them.” ~Mícheál McCann, Irish poet
“The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”
“…doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.”
“This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization.
“We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some—perhaps many—may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:
“This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.“
Jimmy Carter President of the United States of America Statement on the launch of NASA’s Voyager I, 1977
“A diversity of viewpoints is not ‘a nice thing to have’… it’s an imperative. How can you know you’re making the ‘right thing’ if you don’t have a counterbalance?” — David Nolen @ GOTO 2017
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
~ Isaac Asimov, column in Newsweek (21 January 1980)
NB: Asimov, despite his vision, was by his own account and that of his contemporaries a habitual and well known sexual assailant, groping and imposing himself upon others without their consent. See https://www.publicbooks.org/asimovs-empire-asimovs-wall/
I note this here, rather than removing this entry, because you’ll eventually come across Isaac Asimov, quotations from him, or tributes to him. 99% of those will knowingly or unknowingly gloss over his flaws while promoting his contributions to science, writing, and culture. I think you should know the whole story.
“At school, you’re not allowed to fail; the wrong answer is a bad thing,” Dyson says. “But all failures are valuable because they all teach you something. I have lots of them every day.”
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
When you give people too much information, they instantly resort to pattern recognition to structure the experience. The work of the artist is to find patterns