Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator
Essay as "Mr. X" (1969)
“I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked cannabis, irregularly, but with evident pleasure.”
Essay as "Mr. X" (1969)
Context: I had become friendly with a group of people who occasionally smoked cannabis, irregularly, but with evident pleasure. Initially I was unwilling to partake, but the apparent euphoria that cannabis produced and the fact that there was no physiological addiction to the plant eventually persuaded me to try. My initial experiences were entirely disappointing; there was no effect at all, and I began to entertain a variety of hypotheses about cannabis being a placebo which worked by expectation and hyperventilation rather than by chemistry. After about five or six unsuccessful attempts, however, it happened.
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American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science ed… 1934–1996Related quotes
Robert M. Sapolsky (1957) American endocrinologist
Emperor Has No Clothes Award acceptance speech (2003)
Context: In the 1930s an anthropologist named Paul Radin first described it as "shamans being half mad," shamans being "healed madmen." This fits exactly. It's the shamans who are moving separate from everyone else, living alone, who talk with the dead, who speak in tongues, who go out with the full moon and turn into a hyena overnight, and that sort of stuff. It's the shamans who have all this metamagical thinking. When you look at traditional human society, they all have shamans. What's very clear, though, is they all have a limit on the number of shamans. That is this classic sort of balanced selection of evolution. There is a need for this subtype — but not too many.
The critical thing with schizotypal shamanism is, it is not uncontrolled the way it is in the schizophrenic. This is not somebody babbling in tongues all the time in the middle of the hunt. This is someone babbling during the right ceremony. This is not somebody hearing voices all the time, this is somebody hearing voices only at the right point. It's a milder, more controlled version.
Shamans are not evolutionarily unfit. Shamans are not leaving fewer copies of their genes. These are some of the most powerful, honored members of society. This is where the selection is coming from. … In order to have a couple of shamans on hand in your group, you're willing to put up with the occasional third cousin who's schizophrenic.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Unexpectedly, this turned out to be true.
1960s, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967-1969)
Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist
Katniss (p. 188)
The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Sinnathamby Rajaratnam (1915–2006) Early life
Lee Kuan Yew, in an interview with Channel NewsAsia in 2005. http://viweb.freehosting.net/SRajaratnam.htm
Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer
Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy
Bruce Parry (1969) British documentarian
As quoted in "My hols: Bruce Parry" in Times Online UK (16 September 2007) http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/travel/news/article2452420.ece
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
As quoted in The Journal of NIH Research (1990), 2, 30
General sources