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From across two centuries, it's hard to recapture the frenzied mood that made the French and the 'wild Irish' seem so grave a threat that we were willing to surrender our most precious freedoms. Giving credit for French and Irish cultural triumphs, advocating equal rights for them, was in effect decried in conservative circles as sentimental - unrealistic political correctness. But that's how it always works. It always seems an aberration later. But by then we're in the grip of the next hysteria. Those who seek power at any price detect a societal weakness, a fear that they can ride into office. It could be ethnic differences, as it was then, perhaps different amounts of melanin in the skin; different philosophies or religions; or maybe it's drug use, violent crime, economic crisis, school prayer, or 'desecrating (literally, making unholy) the flag. Whatever the problem, the quick fix is to shave a little freedom off the Bill of Rights. Yes, in 1942, Japanese-Americans were protected by the Bill of Rights, but we locked them up anyway -after all, there was a war on. Yes, there are Constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure, but we have a war on drugs and violent crime is racing out of control. Yes, there's freedom of speech, but we don't want foreign authors here, spouting alien ideologies, do we? The pretexts change from year to year, but the result remains the same: concentrating more power in fewer hands and suppressing diversity of opinion - even though experience plainly shows the danger of such a course of action.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 392)

“Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?” - Ronald Reagan, campaign speech, 1980

“There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.” - George Washington, address to Congress, 8 January 1790

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 365)

In its early years, the United States boasted one of the highest -perhaps the highest - literacy rates in the world. (Of course, slaves and women didn't count in those days.) As early as 1635, there had been public schools in Massachusetts, and by 1647 compulsory education in all townships there of more than fifty households'. By the next century and a half, educational democracy had spread all over the country. Political theorists came from other countries to witness this national wonder: vast numbers of ordinary working people who could read and write. The American devotion to education for all propelled discovery and invention, a vigorous democratic process, and an upward mobility that pumped the nation's economic vitality. Today, the United States is not the world leader in literacy. Many of those judged literate are unable to read and understand very simple material - much less a sixth-grade textbook, an instruction manual, a bus schedule, a mortgage statement, or a ballot initiative. And the sixth-grade textbooks of today are much less challenging than those of a few decades ago, while the literacy requirements at the workplace have become more demanding than ever before. The gears of poverty, ignorance, hopelessness and low self-esteem mesh to create a kind of perpetual failure machine that grinds down dreams from generation to generation. We all bear the cost of keeping it running. Illiteracy is its linchpin.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 350)

children with special abilities and skills need to be nourished and encouraged. They are a national treasure. Challenging programmes for the 'gifted' are sometimes decried as 'elitism'. Why aren't intensive practice sessions for varsity football, baseball and basketball players and interschool competition deemed elitism? After all, only the most gifted athletes participate. There is a self-defeating double-standard at work here, nationwide.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 335)

As I've tried to stress, at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly sceptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. The collective enterprise of creative thinking and sceptical thinking, working together, keeps the field on track. Those two seemingly contradictory attitudes are, though, in some tension.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 295)

Except by sealing the brain off into separate air-tight compartments, how is it possible to fly in airplanes, listen to the radio or take antibiotics while holding that the Earth is around 10,000 years old or that all Sagittarians are gregarious and affable?

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 288)

Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are laboring to dethrone: but if they argue without reason (which, in order to be consistent with themselves they must do), they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 251)

You might think that before they denounce unwelcome research findings, major corporations would devote their considerable resources to checking out the safety of the products they propose to manufacture. And if they missed something, if independent scientists suggest a hazard, why would the companies protest? Would they rather kill people than lose profits? If, in an uncertain world, an error must be made, shouldn't it be biased toward protecting customers and the public? And, incidentally, what do these cases say about the ability of the free enterprise system to police itself? Aren't these instances where government intrusion is in the public interest?

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 212)

Perhaps when everyone knows that gods come down to Earth, we hallucinate gods; when all of us are familiar with demons, it's incubi and succubi; when fairies are widely accepted, we see fairies; in an age of spiritualism, we encounter spirits; and when the old myths fade and we begin thinking that extraterrestrial beings are plausible, then that's where our hypnogogic imagery tends.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 130)

Another analogy might be that dreams, like the stars, are shining all the time. Though the stars are not often seen by day, since the sun shines too brightly, if, during the day, there is an eclipse of the sun, or if a viewer chooses to be watchful awhile after sunset or awhile before sunrise, or if he is awakened from time to time on a clear night to look at the sky, then the stars, like dreams, though often forgotten, may always be seen.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 106)

Some information is classified legitimately; as with military hardware, secrecy sometimes really is in the national interest. Further, military, political and intelligence communities tend to value secrecy for its own sake. It's a way of silencing critics and evading responsibility for incompetence or worse. It generates an elite, a band of brothers in whom the national confidence can be reliably vested, unlike the great mass of citizenry on whose behalf the information is presumably made secret in the first place. With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 91)

After I give lectures - on almost any subject - 1 often am asked, 'Do you believe in UFOs?' I'm always struck by how the question is phrased, the suggestion that this is a matter of belief and not of evidence. I'm almost never asked, 'How good is the evidence that UFOs are alien spaceships?'

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 82)

The tenets of scepticism do not require an advanced degree to master, as most successful used car buyers demonstrate. The whole idea of a democratic application of scepticism is that everyone should have the essential tools to effectively and constructively evaluate claims to knowledge. All science asks is to employ the same levels of scepticism we use in buying a used car or in judging the quality of analgesics or beer from their television commercials.

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 80)

An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on earth scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children on television and radio and in movies, newspapers, magazines, comics and many books -might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity and consumerism. We keep at it, and through constant repetition many of them finally get it. What kind of society could we create if, instead, we drummed into them science and a sense of hope?

— The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Page 45)