quote · Words worth keeping
I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.
I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.
Approximate author period: c. 1965 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Carl Sagan
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1965 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1934 to 1996; Wikidata Q410, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q410 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 164872; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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