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“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

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Privilege makes it simple to believe that reading/writing is all you need to understand the mind of another person, it is not. There are some things of the human mind that can only be showed, not said or written.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

recently started reading fellowship of the ring, its suprising how much warmth there is in tolkiens writing.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Incidentally, Anthony Doerr’s magnificent novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land, illustrates what Sagan describes (above) beautifully. /2
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I had no idea about the interconnectivity of trees until reading that book.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Wonderful quote, but I always remember we aren't really inside the mind of the writer. If our culture and context differ (and that is bound to happen over time), there will be a disconnect. We can't help but interpret what we read as it is filtered through our context. So be it. Writing is a gift to others. It connects us.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

@Npars01 and books are portals to other worlds. Like mirrors, they expand the space in a room.
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/

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.

#GOP
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?

in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

just listened to Carl Sagan explain Pale Blue Dot again the other day (love that YouTube has all that stuff archived). Pale Blue Dot sums up our human existence better than any religious text or political ideology. If we are to save ourselves, then it's up to us to shed the dogmas that would otherwise hold us back. Or as Sam Harris might say, we can no longer try and make the best of bad ideas; no longer can we give a glossy veneer to ideologies which are ugly underneath.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

@javierm of course m the corollary is that you need to try to not think everything you read.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

He's having ukrainian heritage because he's father and maternal grandmother are immigrants from my country. Truly the best post after Ukraine's Independence Day 🇺🇦 :blobcatcoffee:
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

just remember a book comes from the mind. The mind does not come from a book.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

Sagan was such a visionary that he even introduced hashtags before it was a thing
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

I agree. I found I was provided abundant creativity I did not already know for certain was in me that is expressed with my writing, when I started getting busy with writing stories I create.
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

@iamgerardthomas one of my all-time favorite humans. Not just for his mind, but his storytelling/narration skills. I can hear this quote in his voice. Now I wanna rewatch Cosmos for the tenth time. 😂

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