Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 14

Quotes about:

Acceptance Age Agnosticism Aliens Animals Arguing Art

There is a report that says that kids who watch violent TV programs tend to be more violent when they grow up. But did the TV cause the violence, or do violent children preferentially enjoy watching violent programs?

Carl Sagan

Children, Growing Up, Kids

5 Copy quote
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.

Carl Sagan

Stars, Taken, Destiny

7 Copy quote
Nature does not always conform to our predispositions and preferences, to what we deem comfortable and easy to understand.

Carl Sagan

Doe, Easy, Preference

Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.32, Ballantine Books

4 Copy quote
The way to find out about our place in the universe is by examining the universe and by examining ourselves - without preconceptions, with as unbiased a mind as we can muster.

Carl Sagan

Mind, Unbiased, Way

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

7 Copy quote
While our behavior is still significantly controlled by our genetic inheritance, we have, through our brains, a much richer opportunity to blaze new behavioral and cultural pathways on short timescales.

Carl Sagan

Science, Opportunity, Brain

Carl Sagan (2012). “Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence”, p.3, Ballantine Books

7 Copy quote
Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition.

Carl Sagan

Comfort, Cosmos, Fleeting

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.361, Ballantine Books

8 Copy quote
For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled, even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven't forgotten: The open road still softly calls like a nearly forgotten song of childhood.

Carl Sagan

Song, Cities, Childhood

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.15, Ballantine Books

10 Copy quote
In Italy, the Inquisition was condemning people to death until the end of the eighteenth century, and inquisitional torture was not abolished in the Catholic Church until 1816. The last bastion of support for the reality of witchcraft and the necessity of punishment has been the Christian churches.

Carl Sagan

Christian, Atheist, Reality

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.528, Ballantine Books

7 Copy quote
Much of human history can, I think, be described as a gradual and sometimes painful liberation from provincialism, the emerging awareness that there is more to the world than was generally believed by our ancestors.

Carl Sagan

Thinking, World, Belief

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

6 Copy quote
Real patriots ask questions.

Carl Sagan

Real, Patriot, Asks

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.538, Ballantine Books

4 Copy quote
There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.

Carl Sagan

Simple, Self, Perfect

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.362, Ballantine Books

4 Copy quote
In the vastness of the Cosmos there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours.

Carl Sagan

Civilization, Cosmos, Vastness

"Cosmos/ Encyclopaedia Galactica". Documentary, 1980.

10 Copy quote
It is said that men may not be the dreams of the god, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men.

Carl Sagan

Inspirational, God, Dream

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.284, Ballantine Books

7 Copy quote
If we do not speak for Earth, who will? If we are not committed to our own survival, who will be?

Carl Sagan

Survival, Earth, Speak

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.349, Ballantine Books

9 Copy quote
Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.

Carl Sagan

Knowledge, Science, Wish

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Book by Carl Sagan, p. 332, 1980.

10 Copy quote
My long-time view about Christianity is that it represents an amalgam of two seemingly immiscible parts-the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul. Thomas Jefferson attempted to excise the Pauline parts of the New Testament. There wasn't much left when he was done, but it was an inspiring document.

Carl Sagan

Jesus, Views, Two

4 Copy quote
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

Carl Sagan

Book, Years, Voice

7 Copy quote
Humans - who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals - have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain.

Carl Sagan

Inspirational, Pain, Animal

19 Copy quote
He didn't want to believe. He wanted to know.

Carl Sagan

Believe, Thinking, Atheism

6 Copy quote
But down deep, at the molecular heart of life we're essentially identical to trees.

Carl Sagan

Heart, Tree, Identical

7 Copy quote
Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.

Carl Sagan

Suicidal, Science, Long

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

7 Copy quote
Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.

Carl Sagan

Home, Humility, Science

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.41, Ballantine Books

7 Copy quote
Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring — not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive.

Carl Sagan

Running, Responsibility, Space

"Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space".

7 Copy quote
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Carl Sagan

Funny, Brother, Laughter

Broca's Brain ch. 5 (1979)

79 Copy quote
What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. ... Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

Carl Sagan

Book, Dark, Years

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". TV Series (Episode 11: The Persistence of Memory), 1990.

6 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Stephen Hawking

Bill Nye

Richard P. Feynman

Richard Dawkins

Carl Sagan

Follow

Born: November 9, 1934
Died: December 20, 1996
Occupation: Astronomer
Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics