“What an astonishing thing a book is… one glance at it & you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly & silently inside your head, directly to you.
Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. #Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”
- Carl Sagan
Mary Ann Horn
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Barbara
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Socrates
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •flarion
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Jim Shoes
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •tiago
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Simon Cameron
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Enrus
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •@dlenares
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Sheril Kirshenbaum
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Jason Hull
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Rebecca Wirfs-Brock
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Dragon-sided D
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Mark R Nay
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Comm Radio Environment Network
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Barry Goldman
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Real_JamesCain
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Conversely, here are some basic facts #NeilDeGrasseTyson has gotten wrong.
https://www.grunge.com/14813/basic-facts-neil-degrasse-tyson-gotten-wrong/
Basic Facts Neil deGrasse Tyson Has Gotten Wrong
Grunge Staff (Grunge)Zhi Zhu 🕸️
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •This is one reason why the #GOP wants to ban books. They do not want Americans to experience what Sagan refers to as "binding people together who never knew each other".
The GOP wants Americans to feel isolated and fearful of anyone "other" than themselves. It's much easier to exploit people so full of fear that they can't think straight. People who are calm and feel secure are much harder to manipulate, because they can take the time to think things through.
Red Angel Sophia
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •— Do you know a source for this quote?
Of course, whether or not this is really a Saint Carl quote, it still very much describes how he (as well as Saint Bertrand [Russel] and others) have kept me company in my life —— even though both of them died before I was to the point of being able to appreciate them (and in the case of Saint Bertrand, before I was even born).
But still — it would be nice to verify whether this is an actual quote from Saint Carl. Do you know the source?
Carl Anthony
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Rai Aren 🖖✨📚🇺🇦
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •#AmReading
#AmWriting
Paul Levinson
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Farce Majeure
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Debbie Belair
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Pavlo Komisarov
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Pat Cadigan
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •F4GRX Sébastien
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Marcus Reynolds
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Karolina
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •spmatich :blobcoffee:
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Alberson Miranda :rstats:
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Eric the Cerise
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Personally, I count complex language as humanity's most important invention of all time.
The ability to clearly and accurately convey abstract ideas is the Mother of all other skills and inventions, the basis of vicarious experience and the birth of history.
But written language is #2.
Fred Bquick
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Hfb
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •Mark Wyner :vm:
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum • • •