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

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• 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.

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• One of the great commandments of science is: 'Mistrust arguments from authority.'

  Carl Sagan

  Argument, Authority, Primates

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.52, Ballantine Books

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• Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity.

  Carl Sagan

  Stupidity, Glorification

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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

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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

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• 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.

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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.

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• Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us --- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Ocean, Dedication

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• Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

  Carl Sagan

  Life, Art, Motivation

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.26, Ballantine Books

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• I don't want to believe. I want to know.

  Carl Sagan

  Inspirational, Life, Religious

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• 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

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• We are, each of us, a multitude. Within us is a little universe.

  Carl Sagan

  Pain, Littles, Injury

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• 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.

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• The dumbing down of America is evident in the slow decay of substantive content, a kind of celebration of ignorance.

  Carl Sagan

  Ignorance, America, Decay

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• Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.

  Carl Sagan

  Self, Deception, Vastness

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.158, Ballantine Books

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  The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

  Carl Sagan

  Wisdom, Understanding, Brain

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• I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgments.

  Carl Sagan

  Leader, Independence, Promise

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.546, Ballantine Books

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

  Carl Sagan

  Absence, Evidence

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• We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Rocks, Circles

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• Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

  Carl Sagan

  God, Spiritual, Philosophy

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.54, Ballantine Books

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• There are in fact 100 billion galaxies, each of which contain something like a 100 billion stars. Think of how many stars, and planets, and kinds of life there may be in this vast and awesome universe.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Thinking, May

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• Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage - at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom.

  Carl Sagan

  Challenges, Dogma, Sometimes

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.16, Ballantine Books

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• Be grateful everyday for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

  Carl Sagan

  Grateful, Opportunity, Everyday

  "In the Valley of the Shadow". Parade, March 10, 1996.

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• In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

  Carl Sagan

  Change, Learning, Humility

  Keynote address at CSICOP conference in 1987. "Do Science and the Bible Conflict?" Book by Judson Poling, p. 30, 2003.

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