It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first.
– Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
And everywhere people asked him why he was walking through the country. Because he loved true things he tried to explain.
– John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
The human mind was able to formulate the idea of a universal calculating machine at the very moment it became obvious that we cannot calculate everything mechanically; that there are questions that we know as answerable only once they have been answered, and not before.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
That is to say, depth is a measure of how many surprises the object has been subjected to in its history.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
I know there are people who must be completely independent of others in order to feel free. For them, responding to someone else is like obeying a command. Any action that does not spring entirely from their own desires is false. I can understand this compulsion for detachment.
– Jerzy Kosinski, The Devil Tree
There are no limits to thought, everything can be understood, one day everything will be understood.
– Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion
All the time there is use there is use and any time there is a surface there is a surface, and every time there is an exception there is an exception and every time there is a division there is a dividing.
– Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons
But how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?
– Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
Ultimately, dramatic achievements have always taken us past our fears and overcome denialism–because progress offers hope and for humans nothing beats hope.
– Michael Specter, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives
I wondered how much of this was science fiction, and how much was genuinely likely to happen.
– Michael Specter, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives