Fermi Paradox Quotes

The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life - another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod - there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It's the explanation for the Fermi Paradox. ~ Liu Cixin

The hush of the night sky is the silence of a graveyard. ~ Ted Chiang

The apparent size and age of the universe suggests that many technologically advanced extra-terrestrial civilizations ought to exist. However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it." Or "Where is everybody?" The Fermi Paradox Enrico Fermi, Los Alamos, 1950 ~ Ralph Kern

The apparent incompatibility between the abundance of habitable planets in our Galaxy and the lack of extraterrestrial visitors, known as the Fermi paradox, suggest the existence of what Hanson calls a "Great Filter," an evolutionary/technological roadblock somewhere along the developmental path from nonliving matter to space-colonizing life. If we discover independently evolved primitive life in our Solar System, this would suggest that primitive life is not rare, and that the roadblock lies after our current human stage of development-perhaps because assumption 1 is false, or because almost all advanced civilizations self-destruct before they are able to colonize. I'm therefore crossing my fingers that all searches for life on Mars and elsewhere find nothing: this is consistent with the scenario where primitive life is rare but we humans got lucky, so that we have the roadblock behind us and have extraordinary future potential. ~ Max Tegmark

...philosophy does not, like exact or empirical science, bring us to know things of which we were simply ignorant, but brings us to know in a different way things which we already knew in some way; and indeed it follows from our own hypothesis; for if the species of a philosophical genus overlap, the distinction between the known and the unknown, which in a non-philosophical subject-matter involves a difference be-tween two mutually exclusive classes of truths, in a philosophical subject-matter im- plies that we may both know and not know the same thing; a paradox which disappears in the light of the notion of a scale of forms of knowledge, where coming to know means coming to know in a different and better way. ~ R.G. Collingwood

The world is a contradiction; the universe a paradox. ~ Kedar Joshi

Acts of violence
Whether on a large or a small scale, the bitter paradox: the meaningfulness of death
and the meaninglessness of killing. ~ Dag Hammarskjold

The paradox of individuation is that we best serve intimate relationship by becoming sufficiently developed in ourselves that we do not need to feed off others. ~ James Hollis

That's the great paradox of living on this earth, that in the midst of great pain you can have great joy as well. If we didn't have those things we'd just be numb. ~ Kathy Mattea

Just being nice is not a winning strategy. Nice sends a message that the woman is willing to sacrifice pay to be liked by others. This is why a woman needs to combine niceness with insistence, a style that Mary sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, calls "relentlessly pleasant." This method requires smiling frequently, expressing appreciation and concern, invoking common interests, emphasizing larger goals, and approaching the negotiation as solving a problem as opposed to taking a critical stance. Most negotiations involve drawn-out, successive moves, so women need to stay focused... and smile.

No wonder women don't negotiate as much as men. It's like trying to cross a minefield backward in high heels. So what should we do? Should we play by the rules that others created? Should we figure out a way to put on a friendly expression while not being too nice, displaying the right levels of loyalty and using "we" language? I understand the paradox of advising women to change the world by adhering to biased rules and expectations. I know it is not a perfect answer but a means to a desirable end. It is also true, as any good negotiator knows, that having a better understanding of the other side leads to a superior outcome. So at the very least, women can enter these negotiations with the knowledge that showing concern for the common good, even as they negotiate for themselves, will strengthen their position. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

No, it wasn't. It was the scariest fucking answer to Fermi's paradox I can think of. Do you know why there aren't any Indians in your Old West analogy? Because they're already dead. The whatever-they-were that built all that got a head start and used their protomolecule gate builder to kill all the rest. And that's not even the scary part. The really frightening part is that something else came along, shot the first guys in the back of the head, and left their corpses scattered across the galaxy. The thing we should be asking is, who fired the magic bullet? ~ James S.A. Corey

Guilt cannot, in fact, express itself, except in the indirect language of "captivity" and "infection," inherited from the two prior stages. Thus both symbols are transposed "inward" to express a freedom that enslaves itself, affects itself, and infects itself by its own choice. Conversely, the symbolic and non-literal character of the captivity of sin and the infection of defilement becomes quite clear when these symbols are used to denote a dimension of freedom itself; then and only then do we know that they are symbols, when they reveal a situation that is centered in the relation of oneself to oneself. Why this recourse to the prior symbolism? Because the paradox of a captive free will - the paradox of a servile will - is insupportable for thought. That freedom must be delivered and that this deliverance is deliverance from self-enslavement cannot be said directly; yet it is the central theme of "salvation ~ Paul Ricoeur

To be terrified and yet unafraid seems a great paradox of worship, but when one has tasted it, the notion of an eternity spent terrifyingly unafraid like that is remarkably appetizing. ~ Ben Palpant

The profound paradox is that the great man became more confident in his approach to others, including the man of his own Cabinet, but he recognized that his major confidence was not himself but in Another. ~ Elton Trueblood

The paradox is that by being 'in love' we are in fact falling in love with ourselves, and we have an opportunity to see ourselves in the eyes of another. It is an ecstatic place to be, the dance of romantic love, and one that cannot be denied, for it is the place where we are most likely to experience a divine tango with our soul. Love and myth go hand in hand, for myth is the most exquisite mirror of all for the reflection of self. ~ Sarah Bartlett

You can't trust the opinions of the others, because of the Blub paradox: they're satisfied with whatever language they happen to use, because it dictates the way they think about programs. ~ Paul Graham

Don't you know that it is only the very foolish folk who talk sense all the time? (Anne) ~ L.M. Montgomery

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. There may be a superficial escape – into different countries, mores, speech patterns – but what you are essentially doing is furthering your understanding of life's subtleties, paradoxes, joys, pains and truths. Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic. ~ Julian Barnes

Never make a calculation until you know the answer. Make an estimate before every calculation, try a simple physical argument (symmetry! invariance! conservation!) before every derivation, guess the answer to every paradox and puzzle. Courage: No one else needs to know what the guess is. Therefore make it quickly, by instinct. A right guess reinforces this instinct. A wrong guess brings the refreshment of surprise. In either case life as a spacetime expert, however long, is more fun! ~ John Archibald Wheeler

The Universe is very, very big.
It also loves a paradox. For example, it has some extremely strict rules.
Rule number one: Nothing lasts forever.
Not you or your family or your house or your planet or the sun. It is an absolute rule. Therefore when someone says that their love will never die, it means that their love is not real, for everything that is real dies.
Rule number two: Everything lasts forever. ~ Craig Ferguson

The absence of the latter means nothing, though its presence may mean everything ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

The only way to be completely self-consistent is to be constantly uttering paradoxes. ~ Bauvard

There's a paradox in every paradigm. ~ Ani DiFranco

We don't need anyone to teach us sorcery, because there is really nothing to learn. What we need is a teacher to convince us that there is incalculable power at our fingertips. What a strange paradox! ~ Carlos Castaneda

The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs ... In fact, the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one, is so incomprehensible to the human mind, that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea? He who thinks he does, only deceives himself. He proves, also, that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck.
[Letter to James Smith discussing Jefferson's hate of the doctrine of the Christian trinity, December 8 1822] ~ Thomas Jefferson

Proper process, should not hinder progress. Too much focus on process, has left many blind to measured, tangible progress. ~ Justin K. McFarlane Beau

Love made room for conflict. It allowed for the expression of more than one view and invited the paradox that disagreement was vital to harmony. Love required accepting and meant changing oneself rather than demanding change of others. ~ Jo Goodman

Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

I'm no one ... I don't want to be anyone. I stepped into singularity to exist within a void. I'm no one ... However, I am becoming ... Imagination. I am grabbing conception, and leaving humanity behind. Humans have lost their sight, and individuality makes people blind to the truth. It makes people believe that anything is possible. Only nothing is possible. But then again, my words are the words of no one. ~ Lionel Suggs

Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one's mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Here we have the paradox, the potentially tragic paradox, that our relatedness to others is an essential aspect of our being, as is our separateness, but any particular person is not a necessary part of our being. ~ R.D. Laing

My Darling,

It is late at night and though the words are coming hard to me, I can't escape the feeling that it's time that I finally answer your question.

Of course I forgive you. I forgive you now, and I forgave you the moment I read your letter. In my heart, I had no other choice. Leaving you once was hard enough; to have done it a second time would have been impossible. I loved you too much to have let you go again. Though I'm still grieving over what might have been, I find myself thankful that you came into my life for even a short period of time. In the beginning, I'd assumed that we were somehow brought together to help you through your time of grief. Yet now, one year later, I've come to believe that it was the other way around.

Ironically, I am in the same position you were, the first time we met. As I write, I am struggling with the ghost of someone I loved and lost. I now understand more fully the difficulties you were going through, and I realize how painful it must have been for you to move on. Sometimes my grief is overwhelming, and even though I understand that we will never see each other again, there is a part of me that wants to hold on to you forever. It would be easy for me to do that because loving someone else might diminish my memories of you. Yet, this is the paradox: Even though I miss you greatly, it's because of you that I don't dread the future. Because you were able to fall in love with me, you have given me hop ~ Nicholas Sparks

In contemporary society as the evidence suggests charity under the capitalist ideology is a social paradox where in one hand it helps the poor to be part of the system and it also alleviates the consequences of poverty. On the other hand, it maintains the ruling class in power safe guarded by the ideology of capitalism which absorbed charity as part of the ideology itself. In addition, with this class that charity brings it validates and minimizes class struggle of capitalism. ~ Bruno De Oliveira

Paradox is at the heart of the mysteries of witchcraft. I believe that paradox is what allows the conditions for the witch to create magick. By creating a paradox, we essentially overload the processing of reality by breaking the rules. In a way, we're jamming the system like throwing a wrench into the cogs, where we can then enter in our own codes for when we're done and the system and its processes of reality resume. ~ Mat Auryn

Of what use is the universe? What is the practical application of a million galaxies? Yet just because it has no use, it has a use- which may sound like a paradox, but is not. What, for instance, is the use of playing music? If you play to make money, to outdo some other artist, to be a person of culture, or to improve your mind, you are not really playing- for your mind is not on the music. You don't swing. When you come to think of it, playing or listening to music is a pure luxury, an addiction, a waste of valuable time and money for nothing more than making elaborate patterns of sound. ~ Alan Watts

If Jesus is at once God and human, that means that as believers we cannot refer to Jesus as God without qualifying that:"God in human form. ~ Amos Smith

My name is Stephen Leeds, and I am perfectly sane. My hallucinations, however, are all quite mad. ~ Brandon Sanderson

The paradox of simplicity is that making things simpler is hard work. ~ Bill Jensen

The law of love is the ultimate law because it is the negation of law; it is absolute because it concerns everything concrete. The paradox of final revelation, overcoming the conflict between absolutism and relativism, is love. ~ Paul Tillich

Mystics have spoken to us through the ages in terms of paradox. Is it possible that we are beginning to see a meeting ground between science and religion? When we are able to say that "a human is both mortal and eternal at the same time" and "light is both a wave and a particle at the same time," we have begun to speak the same language. Is it possible that the path of spiritual growth that ~ M. Scott Peck

At a bare minimum, understanding entails being able to detect an internal contradiction: a paradox. ~ William Poundstone

I think one of the primary themes in my work is the paradox of memory, at once fundamental to our sense of who we are and yet elusive, ever-changing, fragmentary. One way to look at this is to say that, therefore, we ourselves are elusive, ever-changing and fragmentary to ourselves. ~ Floyd Skloot

It isn't a paradox, darling. I just expressed it in that way to sound like one. Everything can be formulated as a paradox. It isn't difficult. It's just that true paradoxes don't exist. True paradoxes, ha, ha. Do you see how easy it is? It's just words, the lack of precision in language. I have finished with words. ~ Jo Nesbo

But, Doctor. The human race didn't die out in 1984.'
'New timeline. It's a paradox.'
'And you're the paradoctor?'
'Just the Doctor. ~ Neil Gaiman

Here we discover the paradox of the contemplative life, that the desert of solitude can be the school where we learn to love others. ~ Kathleen Norris