There are huge advertising budgets only when there's no difference between the products. If the products really were different, people would buy the … - Carl Sagan

Advertising teaches people not to trust their judgment. Advertising teaches people to be stupid.

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington owned slaves; Albert Einstein and Mohandas Gandhi were imperfect husbands and fathers. The list goes on indefinitely. We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future? Some of the habits of our age will doubtless be considered barbaric by later generations – perhaps for insisting that small children and even infants sleep alone instead of with their parents; or exciting nationalist passions as a means of gaining popular approval and achieving high political office; or allowing bribery and corruption as a way of life; or keeping pets; or eating animals and jailing chimpanzees; or criminalizing the use of euphoriants by adults; or allowing our children to grow up ignorant.

Science by itself cannot advocate courses of human action, but it can certainly illuminate the possible consequences of alternative courses of action.

We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.