There is a lot of appreciation around here for long form essays and books, in reading stories that may take a while to tell.
But what about that one expression or passage that electrifies you? Share your favorites
Picking just one seemed a tragedy.
On knowledge, creativity, and connecting the dots:
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Science is not built to increase either the “truthfulness” or the total volume of information. It is designed to increase the order and organization of knowledge we generate about the world.
These three ideas changed the whole way I thought of the world. Science is not about discovering new facts, but connecting new observations to the web of existing knowledge. Creativity isn't invention—it's just connecting the dots. Design, science, writing, art—they're all just ways of gradually increasing the order and interconnectedness of human thought. Through that lens, it's no wonder that the internet accelerated nearly every sphere of human achievement: if you increase the ability for ideas to find each other, connect and combine—you accelerate everything.
Most awe-inspiring quote of all time, however, goes to Carl Sagan. Goes with this image:
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.