Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 21

Quotes about:

• The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience..... To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

  Carl Sagan

  Responsibility, Home, Character

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.29, Ballantine Books

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• I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer imiverse, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder.

  Carl Sagan

  Wine, Science, Night

  "Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science".

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• We live in an in-between universe where things change all right...but according to patterns, rules, or as we call them, laws of nature.

  Carl Sagan

  Law, Patterns, Things Change

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• These days there seems to be nowhere left to explore, at least on the land area of the Earth. Victims of their very success, the explorers now pretty much stay home.

  Carl Sagan

  Home, Land, Earth

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.17, Ballantine Books

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• These are all cases of proved or presumptive baloney. A deception arises, sometimes innocently but collaboratively, sometimes with cynical premeditation. Usually the victim is caught up in a powerful emotion -- wonder, fear, greed, grief. Credulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that's what P. T. Barnum meant when he said, 'There's a sucker born every minute.' But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic -- however sympathetic we may be to those who have bought the baloney.

  Carl Sagan

  Powerful, Grief, Acceptance

  Carl Sagan (2011). “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.209, Ballantine Books

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• Observation: I can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

  Carl Sagan

  Dinosaurs, Sagan, Observation

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• The impediment to scientific thinking is not, I think, the difficulty of the subject. Complex intellectual feats have been mainstays even of oppressed cultures. Shamans, magicians and theologians are highly skilled in their intricate and arcane arts. No, the impediment is political and hierarchical.

  Carl Sagan

  Art, Thinking, Political

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.398, Ballantine Books

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• We are...capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet. To enhance enormously our understanding of the Universe, and to carry us to the stars.

  Carl Sagan

  Meaningful, Stars, Compassion

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• In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."

  Carl Sagan

  Change, Science, Theoretical Physics

  Keynote address at CSICOP conference, 1987.

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• I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Night, Class

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.414, Ballantine Books

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• The Platonists and their Christian successors held the peculiar notion that the Earth was tainted and somehow nasty, while the heavens were perfect and divine. The fundamental idea that the Earth is a planet, that we are citizens of the Universe, was rejected and forgotten.

  Carl Sagan

  Christian, Ideas, Perfect

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.212, Ballantine Books

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• You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares.

  Carl Sagan

  Beautiful, Dream, Nightmare

  "Fictional character: Alien". "Contact", www.imdb.com. 1997.

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• Is it fair to be suspicious of an entire profession because of a few bad apples? There are at least two important differences, it seems to me. First, no one doubts that science actually works, whatever mistaken and fraudulent claim may from time to time be offered. But whether there are any miraculous cures from faith-healing, beyond the body's own ability to cure itself, is very much at issue. Secondly, the expose' of fraud and error in science is made almost exclusively by science. But the exposure of fraud and error in faith-healing is almost never done by other faith-healers.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Healing, Issues

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• What a splendid perspective contact with a profoundly different civilization might provide! In a cosmic setting vast and old beyond ordinary human understanding we are a little lonely, and we ponder the ultimate significance, if any, of our tiny but exquisite blue planet, the Earth.... In the deepest sense the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves.

  Carl Sagan

  Lonely, Blue, Civilization

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• Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It's just the best we have.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Perfect, Instruments

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.51, Ballantine Books

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• At the extremes it is difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from rigid, doctrinaire religion.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Religion, Pseudoscience

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.41, Ballantine Books

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• UFOs: The reliable cases are uninteresting and in the interesting cases are unreliable.

  Carl Sagan

  Interesting, Cases, Ufo

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• Science is more than a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking: a way of skeptically interrogating the universe.

  Carl Sagan

  Thinking, Body, Way

  Carl Sagan, Tom Head (2006). “Conversations with Carl Sagan”, p.143, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• All inquires carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions.

  Carl Sagan

  Guarantees That, Risk, Elements

  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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• Our intelligence is imperfect, surely, and newly arisen; the ease with which it can be sweet-talked, overwhelmed, or subverted by other hardwired propensities - sometimes themselves disguised as the cool light of reason - is worrisome.

  Carl Sagan

  Sweet, Truth, Light

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, p.407, Ballantine Books

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• We invest far off places with a certain romance... Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game; none of them lasts for ever. Your own life, or your bands, or even your species - might be owed to a restless few, drawn by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands, and new worlds.

  Carl Sagan

  Summer, Winter, Land

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

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• What began in deadly competition has helped us to see that global cooperation is the essential precondition for our survival. Travel is broadening. It's time to hit the road again.

  Carl Sagan

  Competition, Survival, Essentials

  Carl Sagan (1994). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, Random House Incorporated

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• Science is a collaborative enterprise, spanning the generations. When it permits us to see the far side of some new horizon, we remember those who prepared the way - seeing for them also.

  Carl Sagan

  New Horizons, Generations, Way

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• I never said it. Honest. Oh, I said there are maybe 100 billion galaxies and 10 billion trillion stars. It's hard to talk about the Cosmos without using big numbers. I said "billion" many times on the Cosmos television series, which was seen by a great many people. But I never said "billions and billions." For one thing, it's too imprecise. How many billions are "billions and billions"? A few billion? Twenty billion? A hundred billion? "Billions and billions" is pretty vague. When we reconfigured and updated the series, I checked-and sure enough, I never said it.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Numbers, People

  "Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium". Book by Carl Sagan, 1997.

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• Goddard represented a unique combination of visionary dedication and technological brilliance. He studied physics because he needed physics to get to Mars. In reading the notebooks of Robert Goddard, I am struck by how powerful his exploratory and scientific motivations were - and how influental speculative ideas, even erroneous ones, can be on the shaping of the future.

  Carl Sagan

  Notebook, Motivation, Powerful

  Carl Sagan (1979). “Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science”, Random House Inc

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