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Carl Sagan Quotes

All Quotes Acceptance Age Art Astronomy Atheism Atheist Authority Awareness Balance Belief Challenges Character Childhood Children Church Community Compassion Consciousness Creation Criticism Culture Curiosity Darkness Death Doubt Earth Education Enthusiasm Evidence Evolution Giving God Greek Heart History Home Humanity Humility Ignorance Imagination Injury Inspirational Judging Knowledge Learning Life Lifetime Love Loyalty Lying Magic Mathematics Memories Moon Morning Motivation Motivational Nature Observation Opportunity Pain Passion Past Perspective Philosophy Physics Prejudice Purpose Reading Reality Rejection Religion Responsibility Risk Romance Running Science Science And Technology Spirituality Spring Stupidity Survival Teaching Technology Time Today Truth Understanding Universe Vision Waiting War Water Weakness Winter Writing

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Positive, Hope, Educational

Nobel Award Ceremony Speech by Professor Olga Botner, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 2017.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

Taken, Science, Long

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.314, Ballantine Books

Even through your hardest days, remember we are all made of stardust.

Remember, Stardust, Made

If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.

Religious, Political, Rambling

Interview with Charlie Rose, May 27, 1996.

Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity.

Stupidity, Glorification

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.

Science, Prejudice, Vastness

"Wonder and Skepticism". The Skeptical Inquirer 19 (1), www.csicop.org. January/February 1995.

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - [...] when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

Children, Hands, America

"A Disturbing 1995 Prediction by Carl Sagan Accurately Describes America of Today" by PAUL RATNER, bigthink.com.

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.

Stars, Iron, Apples

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.255, Ballantine Books

Ask courageous questions. Do not be satisfied with superficial answers. Be open to wonder and at the same time subject all claims to knowledge, without exception, to intense skeptical scrutiny. Be aware of human fallibility. Cherish your species and your planet.

Answers, Courageous, Wonder

If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.

Country, Children, Teaching

"The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark". Book by Carl Sagan, ch. 25: "Real Patriots Ask Questions", 1995.

If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves.

Ifs

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.354, Ballantine Books

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

Motivational, Education, Knowledge

"Why We Need To Understand Science". The Skeptical Inquirer Vol. 14, Issue 3, www.csicop.org. Spring 1990.

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe

Death, Faith, Atheist

To live in the hearts of others is to never die in those we leave behind.

Heart, Behinds, Dies

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Inspirational, Nature, Hipster

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.242, Ballantine Books

We live on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam

Dust, Sunbeams, Suspended

We are the universe experiencing itself.

Universe

Wisdom lies in understanding our limitations.

Lying, Understanding, Limitation

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

The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

Optimistic, Space, Awful

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

Absence, Evidence

Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.

Stars, Ocean, Long

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Book by Carl Sagan, p. 193, 1980.

I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgments.

Leader, Independence, Promise

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

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Life, Art, Motivation

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

Be grateful everyday for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

Grateful, Opportunity, Everyday

"In the Valley of the Shadow". Parade, March 10, 1996.

You have to know the past to understand the present.

Knowledge, Past, Political

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.62, Ballantine Books

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