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

  Carl Sagan

  Remember, Stardust, Made

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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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• 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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• Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity.

  Carl Sagan

  Stupidity, Glorification

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• 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.

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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 are the universe experiencing itself.

  Carl Sagan

  Universe

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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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  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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• Who are we, if not measured by our impact on others? That’s who we are! We’re not who we say we are, we’re not who we want to be - we are the sum of the influence and impact that we have, in our lives, on others.

  Carl Sagan

  Motivational, Impact, Want

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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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• Cosmos is a Greek word for the order of the universe. It is, in a way, the opposite of Chaos. It implies the deep interconnectedness of all things. It conveys awe for the intricate and subtle way in which the universe is put together.

  Carl Sagan

  Order, Opposites, Greek

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.37, 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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  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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  We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

  Carl Sagan

  Time, Butterfly, Thinking

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.49, Ballantine Books

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• The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

  Carl Sagan

  Ignorance, Media, Sound

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.49, 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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• 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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• The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

  Carl Sagan

  Optimistic, Space, Awful

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

  Carl Sagan

  Absence, Evidence

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• 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

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Thinking, Hands, Scientific Method

  Carl Sagan (2011). “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.434, Ballantine Books

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