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.”
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.
When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.
People think of education as something that they can finish.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists.
So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe.
There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don’t come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.
Life is a journey, but don’t worry, you’ll find a parking spot at the end.
It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
The day you stop learning is the day you begin decaying.
There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.
There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.
Man’s greatest asset is the unsettled mind.
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny…’
Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think.
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.
I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.
Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer should be replaced by a computer.
They won’t listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don’t want the truth; they want their traditions.
