Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 12

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• A still more glorious dawn awaits / not a sunrise, but a galaxy-rise / a morning filled with 400 billion suns / the rising of the milky way

  Carl Sagan

  Morning, Sunrise, Dawn

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• A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1... no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger still.

  Carl Sagan

  Numbers, Mind, Infinity

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Book by Carl Sagan, p. 220, 1980.

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• There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Interesting, Imperfection

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• A blade of grass is a commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars will know the value of a patch of green. And if a blade of grass is priceless, what is the value of a human being?

  Carl Sagan

  Miracle, Would Be, Mars

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.309, Ballantine Books

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• Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism-especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested-and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.

  Carl Sagan

  Knowledge, Acceptance, Science

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• I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed.

  Carl Sagan

  Thinking, Who We Are, Where We Came

  Carl Sagan (2006). “The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God”, p.197, Penguin

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• You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.

  Carl Sagan

  Beautiful, Dream, Cutting

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• A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.

  Carl Sagan

  Freedom, Science, Simple

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.176, Ballantine Books

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• There are many other (besides testosterone) behaviour-eliciting hormones fundamental for humen well-being, including estrogen and progesterone in females. The fact that complex behavioural patterns can be triggered by a tiny concentration of moleculas coursing through the bloodstream, and that different animals of the same species generate different amounts of these hormones, is something worth thinking about when it's time to judge such matters as free will, individual responsibility, and law and order.

  Carl Sagan

  Responsibility, Thinking, Animal

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• What's the harm of a little mystification? It sure beats boring statistical analyses.

  Carl Sagan

  Analysis, Littles, Boring

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.476, Ballantine Books

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• At a few hundred kilometers altitude, the Earth fills half your sky, and the band of blue that stretches from Mindanao to Bombay, which your eye encompasses in a single glance, can break your heart with its beauty. Home you think. Home. This is my world. This is where I come from. Everyone I know, everyone I ever heard of, grew up down there, under that relentless and exquisite blue.

  Carl Sagan

  Home, Heart, Eye

  Carl Sagan (1997). “Contact”, p.278, Simon and Schuster

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• Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.

  Carl Sagan

  Self Esteem, Past, Challenges

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.50, Ballantine Books

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• There is today-in a time when old beliefs are withering-a kind of philosophical hunger, a need to know who we are and how we got here. It is an on-going search, often unconscious, for a cosmic perspective for humanity

  Carl Sagan

  Philosophical, Perspective, Humanity

  Carl Sagan (1973). “Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective”, p.59, Cambridge University Press

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• Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the world.

  Carl Sagan

  Love You, World, Want

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.48, Ballantine Books

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• Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience.

  Carl Sagan

  Doe, Pseudoscience, Would Be

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.23, Ballantine Books

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• Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don't conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything - new ideas and established wisdom.

  Carl Sagan

  Thinking, Ideas, Balance

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

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• Some 5 billion years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth... then the sun will begin to die, life will be extinguished, the oceans will boil and evaporate away.

  Carl Sagan

  Ocean, Perfect Days, Years

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• The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

  Carl Sagan

  Cosmos, Earth, Vastness

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.28, Ballantine Books

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• Science is a way of thinking that helps you not to fool yourself.

  Carl Sagan

  Thinking, Way, Fool

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• My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts (as well as unable to take such a course of action) if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival. In either case, the enterprise of knowledge is consistent with both science and religion, and is essential for the welfare of the human species.

  Carl Sagan

  Passion, Hands, Survival

  Carl Sagan, Jerald F. TerHorst, Allan J. Mayer, Sharon S. McKern, Laurence J. Peter (1980). “Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science”

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• We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.

  Carl Sagan

  Real, Quality, Stories

  Carl Sagan (1997). “Contact”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

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• You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.

  Carl Sagan

  Fun, Science, People

  "The Burden of Skepticism". Book by Carl Sagan, 1987.

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• The passion to explore is at the heart of being human.

  Carl Sagan

  Nature, Passion, Heart

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• Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

  Carl Sagan

  Death, History, Would Be

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.355, Ballantine Books

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• Absolute certainty will always elude us. We will always be mired in error. The most each generation can hope for is to reduce the error. . . .

  Carl Sagan

  Errors, Elude Us, Generations

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

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