
“Creators of history always play with our impotence and our ignorance.”
"Game III," p. 98
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Game”
Source: Why Evolution is True (2009), p. 140
“Creators of history always play with our impotence and our ignorance.”
"Game III," p. 98
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “A Game”
“The science of probability gives mathematical expression to our ignorance, not to our wisdom.”
Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (1968)
Context: If everything, everything were known, statistical estimates would be unnecessary. The science of probability gives mathematical expression to our ignorance, not to our wisdom.
“True science teaches us to doubt and to abstain from ignorance.”
Bulletin of New York Academy of Medicine, Vol. IV (1928)
Source: The Idea of History (1946), p. 9
“Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. (8 September 1871)”
Correspondence, Letters to George Sand
Charlie Rose: An Interview with Carl Sagan http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/4553, May 27, 1996.
Context: We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it?
Variant: Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.
Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain
Psychedelic Society (1984)
Context: What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance. And [I think] that beliefs should be put aside, and that a psychedelic society would abandon belief systems [in favor of] direct experience and this is, I think much, of the problem of the modern dilemma, is that direct experience has been discounted and in its place all kind of belief systems have been erected... If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief.
Forms, Eulogies, Images and Symbols, p. 157
Mystic Trudeau: The Fire and the Rose (2007)
The Impact of Space Activities Upon Society (ESA Br) European Space Agency (2005)