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Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 16

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

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

Knowledge, Science, Cosmos

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

We need to reduce military budgets; raise living standards; engender respect for learning; support science, scholarship, invention, and industry; promote free inquiry; reduce domestic coercion; involve the workers more in managerial decisions; and promote genuine respect and understanding derived from an acknowledgement of our common humanity and our common jeopardy.

Military, Common Humanity, Decision

Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.178, Ballantine Books

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.

Ocean, Sea, Water

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

Eratosthenes's only tools were sticks, eyes, feet, and brains; plus a zest for experiment. With those tools he correctly deduced the circumference of the Earth, to high precision, with an error of only a few percent. That's pretty good figuring for 2200 years ago.

Eye, Errors, Zest

Our children long for realistic maps of the future that they can be proud of. Where are the cartographers of human purpose?

Children, Hero, Long

We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world.

Understanding, World, Daily Life

"A Brief History of Time". Book by Stephen Hawking, Introduction, 1988.

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

Education, School, Learning

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

The open road still softly calls.

Stills, Sedentary, Open Road

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

The fact that so little of the findings of modern science is prefigured in Scripture to my mind casts further doubt on it divine inspiration.

Inspiration, Doubt, Mind

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.61, Ballantine Books

After I give lectures-on almost any subject-I am often asked, "Do you believe in UFOs?" I'm always struck by how the question is phrased, the suggestion that this is a matter of belief and not evidence. I'm almost never asked, "How good is the evidence that UFOs are alien spaceships?"

Believe, Giving, Suggestions

Carl Sagan (2011). “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.82, Ballantine Books

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

Religious, Zeitgeist, Appeals

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

We are all made up of star stuff.

Stars, Stuff, Made

A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars - billions upon billions of stars. Every star may be a sun to someone.

Stars, Dust, May

Cosmos ch. 1 (1980). Sagan denied using the phrase "billions and billions," as caricatured by comedian Johnny Carson, but the above quote approaches that phrase, and Sagan was extremely fond in his writing of the word billion or billions.

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.

Mistake, Distance, Ignorance

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

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

Believe, Science, Discovery

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

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.

Beautiful, Moving, Fire

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

When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, that is the heart of science.

Integrity, Heart, Science

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 3: "The Harmony of the Worlds", 1990.

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.

Cutting, Two, Evil

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.

Stupid, Believe, People

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

Zoos, Thinking, People

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

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

God, Science, Religion

"Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space". Book by Carl Sagan, 1994.

Is mankind alone in the universe? Or are there somewhere other intelligent beings looking up into their night sky from very different worlds and asking the same kind of question?

Intelligent, Night, Sky

We are the first species to have taken our evolution into our own hands.

Taken, Hands, Firsts

Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.47, Ballantine Books

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

Design, Seems, Universe

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

The prediction of nuclear winter is drawn not, of course, from any direct experience with the consequences of global nuclear war, but rather from an investigation of the governing physics.

War, Winter, Science

"A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race". Book by Carl Sagan, p. 26, 1990.

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