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

  Carl Sagan

  Dust, Sunbeams, Suspended

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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.

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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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• 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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• The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.

  Carl Sagan

  Two, Race, Enemy

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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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• 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 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

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• Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy.

  Carl Sagan

  Dream, Spiritual, Atheist

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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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• 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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• One of the greatest gifts adults can give - to their offspring and to their society - is to read to children.

  Carl Sagan

  Education, Children, Giving

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• The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.

  Carl Sagan

  Numbers, Logical, Simplest

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• Your god is too small for my universe.

  Carl Sagan

  Universe

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• Our passion for learning ... is our tool for survival.

  Carl Sagan

  Passion, Learning, Science

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• 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

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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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