“Inspect every piece of pseudoscience and you will find a security blanket, a thumb to suck, a skirt to hold. What does the scientist have to offer in exchange? Uncertainty! Insecurity!”

De Abaitua interview (1998)
Context: A lot of conspiracy theorists, they find it comforting, secretly. The idea of the Illuminati and the CIA and whoever controlling our lives and destinies. You know, because that means that at least someone is in control, at least someone is at the steering wheel. And it’s not a runaway train. Paranoia is a security blanket, a massive security blanket. Whereas I think that yes these people do try to have an influence, and they often do have a very big influence, the CIA’s unique method of funding its wars over the last thirty years has contributed to the crippling drug problems of most of the Western world. So, yes they have an effect. Do they control our destinies? No, they don’t. They are nowhere near that powerful or organised. Does anything human control our destinies? No. Does this mean that God does? No, for all I know, God might just be a simple, two-line, iterative equation, with no more awareness of itself than that.

Cassiopeia
The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004)

Letter to Robert Bridges (24 October 1883)
Letters, etc
Context: You do not mean by mystery what a Catholic does. You mean an interesting uncertainty: the uncertainty ceasing, interest ceases also... But a Catholic by mystery means an incomprehensible certainty: without certainty, without formulation there is no interest;... the clearer the formulation the greater the interest.

Sir Charles to Mrs. Coulter in Ch. 9 : Theft
His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)

Source: Nightlife

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Quotes 2010s, 2013, Power Systems, p. 109