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  fortune index  all fortunes 
  
 |  |  | #2726 |  | Kill Ugly Processor Architectures - Karl Lehenbauer
 
 |  |  |  | #2727 |  | Kill Ugly Radio - Frank Zappa
 
 |  |  |  | #2728 |  | "Just Say No."   - Nancy Reagan 
 "No."            - Ronald Reagan
 
 |  |  |  | #2729 |  | I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder.  It's a very powerful emotion.  All children feel it.  In a first grade classroom
 everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or
 at least acknowledges it.  Something happens between first and twelfth grade,
 and it's not just puberty.  Not only do the schools and the media not teach
 much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense
 of wonder.  Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling.  Poor
 popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience.
 - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87
 
 |  |  |  | #2730 |  | If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience.  But there is a kind
 of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the
 good.  And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community
 ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the
 media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful.  Every newspaper
 in America has a daily astrology column.  How many have even a weekly
 astronomy column?  And I believe it is also the fault of the educational
 system.  We do not teach how to think.  This is a very serious failure that
 may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human
 future.
 - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87
 
 |  |  |  | #2731 |  | "I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience.  And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the
 additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.
 - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87
 
 |  |  |  | #2732 |  | I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelli- gence?"  I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there,
 and use the word *billions*, and so on.  And then I say it would be astonishing
 to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as
 yet no compelling evidence for it.  And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you
 really think?"  I say, "I just told you what I really think."  "Yeah, but
 what's your gut feeling?"  But I try not to think with my gut.  Really, it's
 okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in.
 - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87
 
 |  |  |  | #2733 |  | Repel them.  Repel them.  Induce them to relinquish the spheroid. - Indiana University fans' chant for their perennially bad football team
 
 |  |  |  | #2734 |  | If it's working, the diagnostics say it's fine. If it's not working, the diagnostics say it's fine.
 - A proposed addition to rules for realtime programming
 
 |  |  |  | #2735 |  | It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach
 of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings
 arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself
 completely. . . .Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged
 once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or
 subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son,
 man.
 - Fred Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
 
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