Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of education is trivial compared to the cost of ignorance, of leaving government to the wolves. He taught that the country is safe only when the people rule.
Carl SaganThe illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.
Carl SaganThere is a lurking fear that some things are not โmeant" to be known, that some inquiries are too dangerous for human beings to make.
Carl SaganWhen you buy a used car, you kick the tires, you look at the odometer, you open up the hood. If you do not feel yourself an expert in automobile engines, you bring a friend who is. And you do this with something as unimportant as an automobile. But on the issues of the transcendent, of ethics, of morals, of the origins of the world, of the nature of human beings, on those issues should we not insist upon at least equally skeptical scrutiny?
Carl Sagan