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"Perhaps the most striking aspect of this entire subject is that there are nonhuman primates so close to the edge of language, so willing to learn, so entirely competent in its use and inventive in its application once the language is taught. But this raises a curious question: Why are they all on the edge? Why are there no nonhuman primates with an existing complex gestural language? One possible answer, it seems to me, is that humans have systematically exterminated those other primates who displayed signs of intelligence."
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"Words are the fallen ruins of silent majesty."
"In the wildlife sanctuaries of literature, we study the species of speech, the flight patterns of individual words, the herd behavior of words together, and we learn what language does and why it matters. this is excellent training for going out into the world and looking at all the unhallowed speech of political statements and news headlines and CDC instructions and seeing how it makes the word or in this case, makes a mess of it. It is the truest, highest purpose of language to make things clear and help us see; when words are used to do the opposite you know you're in trouble and maybe that there's a cover-up."
"He had been thinking of how landscape moulds a language. It was impossible to imagine these hills giving forth anything but the soft syllables of Irish, just as only certain forms of German could be spoken on the high crags of Europe; or Dutch in the muddy, guttural, phlegmish lowlands."
"And why does he talk so funny? Doesn't he mean squashed tomatoes?I don't think that they had tomatoes when he comes from, said Bod. And that's just how they talk then."
"The London dialect as it is spoken in educated circles."
"What's the point of using words nobody knows or can say comfortably?"
Explore more quotes by Carl Sagan
"Religions are often state-protected nurseries of pseudoscience, although there's no reason why religions have to play that role. In a way, it's an artefact from times long gone."
"I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students."
"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."
"Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out."
"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense."
"When we look up at night and view the stars, everything we see is shinning because of distant nuclear fusion."
"Pliny suggested that the ostrich, then newly discovered, was the result of a cross between a giraffe and a gnat. (It would, I suppose, have to be a female giraffe and a male gnat.) In practice there must be many such crosses which have not beenattempted because of a certain understandable lack of motivation."
"The school systems, it seems to me have a attitude of discouragement of asking fundamental questions, if a 5 or 6 year old asks why the moon is round or why the grass is green? The usual adult answer, at least in my experience is to discourage the child.what color did you expect the moon to be? square? what color you expect the grass to be?blue?Instead of saying that those are interesting questions and lets try to find the answers or maybe nobody knows the answers and when you grow up you would be able to discover the answers.It would be very healthy for human species if we could have less discouragement and more scientists. - Carl Sagan (In an interview with Magnus Magnusson, 1988)"
"I consider it an extremely dangerous doctrine, because the more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves."
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