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About this quote

What does it mean?
Astrology and palmistry are valued because they make people feel unique and hopeful.
In plain terms
These practices help people feel full of possibilities, like communism for everyone.
What can you take from it?
People seek tools that validate their uniqueness and potential.

Where it applies

  • spiritual discussions
  • personal counseling
  • cultural analysis

Putting it to work

  • offer hope to others
  • understand beliefs

Questions to consider

  • What gives you hope?
  • Why do we seek meaning?

Another view

These practices often lack scientific evidence.

More from Kurt Vonnegut

  1. I know that millions of dollars have been spent to produce this splendid graduating class, and that the main hope of your teachers was, once they got through w…

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  2. Which brings us to the arts, whose purpose, in common with astrology, is to use frauds in order to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. …

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  3. We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. I used to think that science …

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