Saturday Rave: the power of negative thinking by Carl Sagan.

The internet is awash with vomit-inducing inspirational quotations.

(It's all right, I'm not going to give any examples: they're easy enough to find.)

Anyway, I've been looking for a little tart negativity to cleanse away some of that nauseating sweetness, but it's really annoyingly difficult to find anything. 

So here's what one might call a balanced view from Carl Sagan.

Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis - which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism - especially rejection of ideas before they are adequately tested -  and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.

I suppose he's right.

But sometimes I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.


Drawn by Carl Rose and captioned by E B White.

Word To Use Today: grumpy. A grump is a surly remark. The word is probably of imitative origin.