Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 7

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'In his celebrated book, 'On Liberty', the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is "a peculiar evil." If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the "opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its "collision with error." If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.'

Carl Sagan

Truth, Book, Opportunity

Carl Sagan (2011). “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.550, Ballantine Books

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A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

Carl Sagan

Atheist, Science, Ideas

"Contact". Book by Carl Sagan. Chapter 14, p. 244, 1985.

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There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths.

Carl Sagan

Matter, Sacred, Sensitive

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.56, Ballantine Books

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In a complex universe, in a society undergoing unprecedented change, how can we find the truth if we are not willing to question everything and to give a fair hearing to everything?

Carl Sagan

Giving, Hearing, Willing

Carl Sagan (2006). “The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God”, p.195, Penguin

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The Big Bang is our modern scientific creation myth. It comes from the same human need to solve the cosmological riddle [Where did the universe come from?]

Carl Sagan

Bangs, Needs, Creation

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The Apollo pictures of the whole Earth conveyed to multitudes something well known to astronomers: On the scale of the worlds - to say nothing of stars or galaxies - humans are inconsequential, a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal

Carl Sagan

Stars, Rocks, Apollo

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.25, Ballantine Books

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There is in this Universe much of what seems to be design.

Carl Sagan

Design, Seems, Universe

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.75, Ballantine Books

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We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock.

Carl Sagan

Rocks, Humanity, World

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In the deepest sense the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves.

Carl Sagan

Moon, Extraterrestrial, Star Gazing

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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The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home.

Carl Sagan

Home, Science, Understanding

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.25, Ballantine Books

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When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.

Carl Sagan

Inspirational, Educational, Knowledge

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But nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine.

Carl Sagan

Able, Imagine, Subtle

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.422, Ballantine Books

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There is much that science doesn't understand, many mysteries still to be resolved. In a Universe tens of billions of light-years across and some ten or fifteen billion years old, this may be the case forever. We are constantly stumbling on new surprises

Carl Sagan

Light, Years, Forever

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

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A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time.

Carl Sagan

Lonely, War, Ocean

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 13: "Who Speaks for Earth?", 1990.

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That kind of skeptical, questioning, "don't accept what authority tells you" attitude of science - is also nearly identical to the attitude of mind necessary for a functioning democracy. Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other.

Carl Sagan

Attitude, Thinking, Democracies Have

Carl Sagan, Tom Head (2006). “Conversations with Carl Sagan”, p.130, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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There is never only ONE of anything in nature.

Carl Sagan

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The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans. But there is no evidence that its functioning is due to anything more than the 10(14) neural connections that build an elegant architecture of consciousness.

Carl Sagan

Brain, Connections, Machines

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Book by Carl Sagan, p. 278, 1980.

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Coal, oil and gas are called fossil fuels, because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives. - Dr. Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Running, Humble, Long Ago

Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.104, Ballantine Books

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We are one species. We are starstuff.

Carl Sagan

Vastness, Species, Universe

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There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s perfectly all right: it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process.

Carl Sagan

Truth, Self, Aperture

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At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes-an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.

Carl Sagan

Attitude, Heart, Science

"The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark". Ch. 17 : The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder. Book by Carl Sagan, 1995.

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There are lots of ways to communicate what we know, but few ways to communicate what we feel. Music is one way to communicate emotions.

Carl Sagan

Music, Way, Emotion

Carl Sagan, Tom Head (2006). “Conversations with Carl Sagan”, p.49, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns.

Carl Sagan

Stars, Sea, Space

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.170, Ballantine Books

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I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation

Carl Sagan

Rights, Oath Of Office, Wish

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.546, Ballantine Books

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Where did God come from? If we decide this is an unanswerable question why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question.

Carl Sagan

Religion, Why Not, Steps

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

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