Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 16

Quotes about:

• If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Data, Support You

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

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• We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

  Carl Sagan

  Knowledge, Science, Cosmos

  Carl Sagan, Tom Head (2006). “Conversations with Carl Sagan”, p.57, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Night, Years

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.120, Ballantine Books

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• The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls.

  Carl Sagan

  Ocean, Sea, Water

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

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• I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

  Carl Sagan

  Education, School, Learning

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.46, Ballantine Books

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• Human beings grew up in forests; we have a natural affinity for them. How lovely a tree is, straining toward the sky.

  Carl Sagan

  Sky, Tree, Lovely

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.53, Ballantine Books

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• Few scientists now dispute that today's soaring levels of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere will cause global temperature averages to rise by as much as nine degrees Fahrenheit sometime after the year 2000.

  Carl Sagan

  Average, Years, Atmosphere

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• The old appeals to racial, sexual and religious chauvinism to rabid nationalist fervor, are beginning not to work.

  Carl Sagan

  Religious, Zeitgeist, Appeals

  "Cosmos/ Who Speaks for Earth?". Documentary, 1980.

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• For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.

  Carl Sagan

  Religious, Time, Long

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.194, Ballantine Books

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• On the day that we do discover that we are not alone, our society may begin to evolve and transform in some incredible and wondrous new ways.

  Carl Sagan

  May, Our Society, Way

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• There are many instances in science, where those closest to the intricacies of the subject have a more highly developed sense of its intractability than those at some remove. On the other hand, those at too great a distance may, I am well aware, mistake ignorance for perspective.

  Carl Sagan

  Mistake, Distance, Ignorance

  "Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence".

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• I believe that in every person is a kind of circuit which resonates to intellectual discovery-and the idea is to make that resonance work

  Carl Sagan

  Believe, Science, Discovery

  Carl Sagan, Tom Head (2006). “Conversations with Carl Sagan”, p.54, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Looking at fires when high, by the way, especially through one of those prism kaleidoscopes which image their surroundings, is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful experience.

  Carl Sagan

  Beautiful, Moving, Fire

  Keay Davidson, Carl Sagan (1999). “Carl Sagan: a life”, John Wiley & Sons

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• Since World War II, Japan has spawned enormous numbers of new religions featuring the supernatural.... In Thailand, diseases are treated with pills manufactured from pulverized sacred Scripture. Witches are today being burned in South Africa.... The worldwide TM [Transcendental Meditation] organization has an estimated valuation of $3 billion. For a fee, they promise to make you invisible, to enable you to fly.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, War, Numbers

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• It's perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology.

  Carl Sagan

  Jobs, Rain, Technology

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.25, Ballantine Books

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• Science cuts two ways, of course; its products can be used for both good and evil. But there's no turning back from science. The early warnings about technological dangers also come from science.

  Carl Sagan

  Cutting, Two, Evil

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• I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Believe, Thinking

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.245, Ballantine Books

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• Any faith that admires truth, that strives to know God, must be brave enough to accommodate the universe.

  Carl Sagan

  Brave, Enough, Strive

  Carl Sagan (1997). “Contact”, p.420, Simon and Schuster

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• I’m struck again by the irony that spaceflight-conceived in the cauldron of nationalist rivalries and hatreds-brings with it a stunning transnational vision. You spend even a little time contemplating the Earth from orbit and the most deeply engrained nationalisms begin to erode. They seem the squabbles of mites on a plum.

  Carl Sagan

  Hatred, Vision, Earth

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.199, Ballantine Books

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• The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them - the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status.

  Carl Sagan

  Stupid, Believe, People

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• We live at a moment when our relationships to each other, and to all other beings with whom we share this planet, are up for grabs.

  Carl Sagan

  Moments, Our Relationship, Share

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• It means nothing to be open to a proposition we don't understand.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Mean, Religion

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.393, Ballantine Books

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• I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign.

  Carl Sagan

  Zoos, Thinking, People

  Carl Sagan (2006). “The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God”, p.55, Penguin

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• If intelligence is our only edge, we must learn to use it better, to shape it, to understand its limitations and deficiencies -- to use it as cats use stealth, as katydids use camouflage -- to make it the tool of our survival.

  Carl Sagan

  Cat, Survival, Tools

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• I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars.... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light.... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.

  Carl Sagan

  Religious, Stars, Book

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