Carl Sagan Quotes

Quotes about:

• One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

  Carl Sagan

  Taken, Science, Long

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.314, Ballantine Books

  174 Copy quote

• Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

  Carl Sagan

  Positive, Hope, Educational

  Nobel Award Ceremony Speech by Professor Olga Botner, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 2017.

  200 Copy quote

• Even through your hardest days, remember we are all made of stardust.

  Carl Sagan

  Remember, Stardust, Made

  28 Copy quote

• Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity.

  Carl Sagan

  Stupidity, Glorification

  55 Copy quote

• If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.

  Carl Sagan

  Religious, Political, Rambling

  Interview with Charlie Rose, May 27, 1996.

  29 Copy quote

• The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Prejudice, Vastness

  "Wonder and Skepticism". The Skeptical Inquirer 19 (1), www.csicop.org. January/February 1995.

  87 Copy quote

• I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - [...] when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

  Carl Sagan

  Children, Hands, America

  "A Disturbing 1995 Prediction by Carl Sagan Accurately Describes America of Today" by PAUL RATNER, bigthink.com.

  95 Copy quote
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  The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Iron, Apples

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.255, Ballantine Books

  150 Copy quote

• The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Ideas, Argument

  Carl Sagan (2011). “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.429, Ballantine Books

  57 Copy quote

• You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe

  Carl Sagan

  Death, Faith, Atheist

  77 Copy quote

• Ask courageous questions.
  Do not be satisfied with superficial answers.
  Be open to wonder and at the same time subject all claims to knowledge, without exception, to intense skeptical scrutiny.
  Be aware of human fallibility.
  Cherish your species and your planet.

  Carl Sagan

  Answers, Courageous, Wonder

  16 Copy quote
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  We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

  Carl Sagan

  Motivational, Education, Knowledge

  "Why We Need To Understand Science". The Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 14, Issue 3, www.csicop.org. Spring 1990.

  113 Copy quote
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  If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves.

  Carl Sagan

  Ifs

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.354, Ballantine Books

  63 Copy quote

• If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.

  Carl Sagan

  Country, Children, Teaching

  "The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark". Book by Carl Sagan, ch. 25: "Real Patriots Ask Questions", 1995.

  66 Copy quote

• If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

  Carl Sagan

  Inspirational, Nature, Hipster

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.242, Ballantine Books

  77 Copy quote

• If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.

  Carl Sagan

  Book, Library, Lifetime

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.306, Ballantine Books

  10 Copy quote

• To live in the hearts of others is to never die in those we leave behind.

  Carl Sagan

  Heart, Behinds, Dies

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• We are the universe experiencing itself.

  Carl Sagan

  Universe

  10 Copy quote

• We live on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam

  Carl Sagan

  Dust, Sunbeams, Suspended

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• Wisdom lies in understanding our limitations.

  Carl Sagan

  Lying, Understanding, Limitation

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.43, Ballantine Books

  8 Copy quote

• We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of this memory is called the library

  Carl Sagan

  Memories, Brain, Library

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.305, Ballantine Books

  10 Copy quote

• An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Inspire, Doubt

  "Conversations with Carl Sagan". Book edited by Tom Head, p. 70, 2006.

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• Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Ocean, Long

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Book by Carl Sagan, p. 193, 1980.

  13 Copy quote

• The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

  Carl Sagan

  Absence, Evidence

  119 Copy quote

• The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

  Carl Sagan

  Optimistic, Space, Awful

  23 Copy quote

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