At some point you have to decide whether you're going to be a politician or an engineer. You cannot be both. To be a politician is to champion perception over reality. To be an engineer is to make perception subservient to reality. They are opposites. You can't do both simultaneously.

H. W. Kenton
[Substitute "scientist" for "engineer", I am both, and "An Inconvenient Truth" (the phrase as well as the movie) just screams at me when I read this quote. Thanks to my son James for bringing this quote to my attention.--Joe]