Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 8

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• Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death.

  Carl Sagan

  Successful, Meteorology, World

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

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• It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.

  Carl Sagan

  Motivational, Learning, Humility

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• And you are made of a hundred trillion cells. We are, each of us, a multitude.

  Carl Sagan

  Cells, Hundred, Made

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.51, Ballantine Books

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• But I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Thinking, Understanding

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.234, Ballantine Books

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• Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of magic.

  Carl Sagan

  Book, Writing, People

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Book by Carl Sagan, 1990.

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• All inquiries carry with them some element of risk.

  Carl Sagan

  Risk, Inquiry, Elements

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.13, Ballantine Books

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• I believe that the extraordinary should be pursued. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

  Carl Sagan

  Believe, Science, Claims

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.73, Ballantine Books

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• We are a way of the universe knowing itself.

  Carl Sagan

  Knowing, Way, Thrive

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• The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

  Carl Sagan

  Mistake, Ignorance, Errors

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.76, Ballantine Books

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• Science is not perfect. It's often misused; it's only a tool, but it's the best tool we have. Self-correcting , ever changing, applicable to everything: with this tool, we vanquish the impossible.

  Carl Sagan

  Self, Perfect, Tools

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• A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.

  Carl Sagan

  Inspirational, Funny, Reading

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.305, Ballantine Books

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• The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from one another. The quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgment to have safely traveled from star to star.

  Carl Sagan

  Travel, Stars, Distance

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.355, Ballantine Books

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• What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is in a way a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behavior patterns of lizards and baboons: territoriality and aggression and dominance hierarchies. We are each of us largely responsible for what gets put in to our brains. For what as adults we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain we can change ourselves. Think of the possibilities.

  Carl Sagan

  Caring, Thinking, Wind

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

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• If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Believe, Thinking

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.32, Ballantine Books

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• We are made of star-stuff. Our bodies are made of star-stuff. There are pieces of star within us all.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Pieces, Body

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• We humans look rather different from a tree. Without a doubt we perceive the world differently than a tree does. But down deep, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical.

  Carl Sagan

  Heart, Tree, Doubt

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.57, Ballantine Books

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• Recent research shows that many children without enough to eat wind up with diminished capacity to understand and learn (“cognitive impairment” ). Children don't have to be starving for this to happen. Even mild undernourishment — the kind most common among poor people in America — can do it.

  Carl Sagan

  Children, Wind, America

  "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark".

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• In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the sceptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.

  Carl Sagan

  Kindness, Fear, Real

  Carl Sagan (2011). “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.298, Ballantine Books

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• Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? ... No other human institution comes close.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Thinking, People

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.55, Ballantine Books

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• It is clear that the nations of the world now can only rise and fall together. It is not a question of one nation winning at the expense of another. We must all help one another or all perish together.

  Carl Sagan

  Peace, Fall, Winning

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• In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Religion, Wish

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• The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

  Carl Sagan

  Memories, Fall, Voice

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

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• The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.

  Carl Sagan

  Teacher, Inspire, Mind

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.307, Ballantine Books

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• Extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence to make them believable.

  Carl Sagan

  Observation, Evidence, Extraordinary

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• Our perceptions are fallible. We sometimes see what isn't there. We are prey to optical illusions. Occasionally we hallucinate. We are error-prone.

  Carl Sagan

  Errors, Perception, Optical Illusions

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.43, Ballantine Books

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