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Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 19

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(When asked merely if they accept evolution, 45 percent of Americans say yes. The figure is 70 percent in China.) When the movie Jurassic Park was shown in Israel, it was condemned by some Orthodox rabbis because it

(When asked merely if they accept evolution, 45 percent of Americans say yes. The figure is 70 percent in China.) When the movie Jurassic Park was shown in Israel, it was condemned by some Orthodox rabbis because it accepted evolution and because it taught that dinosaurs lived a hundred million years ago-when, as is plainly stated at every Rosh Hashonhan and every Jewish wedding ceremony, the Universe is less than 6,000 years old.

Atheist, Israel, Years

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.416, Ballantine Books

A stars rich in europium; of distant galaxies analyzed through the collective light of a hundred billion constituent stars. Astronomical spectroscopy is an almost magical technique. It amazes me still. Auguste Comte picked a particularly unfortunate example.

Stars, Light, Technique

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.117, Ballantine Books

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together. Information distilled over 4 billion years of biological evolution. Incidentally, all the organisms on the Earth are made essentially of that stuff. An eyedropper full of that liquid could be used to make a caterpillar or a petunia if only we knew how to put the components together.

Years, Together, Atoms

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 5: "Blues For a Red Planet", 1990.

This oak tree and me, we're made of the same stuff.

Tree, Stuff, Made

Scientists make mistakes. Accordingly, it is the job of the scientist to recognize our weakness, to examine the widest range of opinions, to be ruthlessly self-critical. Science is a collective enterprise with the error-correction machinery often running smoothly.

Running, Jobs, Mistake

Human beings grew up in forests; we have a natural affinity for them. How lovely a tree is, straining toward the sky.

Sky, Tree, Lovely

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.53, Ballantine Books

We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.

Respect, Science, Intelligent

Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.17, Ballantine Books

I don't know the answer. Maybe no one knows. Maybe when you grow up, you'll be the first to find out.

Growing Up, Answers, Firsts

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue.

Atheist, Believe, Thinking

Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.245, Ballantine Books

Books are key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society.

Book, Keys, Understanding

"The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark". Book by Carl Sagan, Ch. 21: The Path to Freedom, 1995.

When a honeybee dies it releases a death pheromone, a characteristic odour that signals the survivors to remove it from the hive. The corpse is promptly pushed and tugged out of the hive. The death pheromone is oleic acid. What happens if a live bee is dabbed with a drop of oleic acid? Then no matter how strapping and vigourous it might be, it is carried kicking and screaming out of the hive.

Science, Survivor, Kicking

Any sufficiently crisp question can be answered by a single binary digit-0 or 1, yes or no.

Binary, Yes Or No, Crisps

Carl Sagan (2012). “Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence”, p.23, Ballantine Books

There is a lurking fear that some things are not “meant" to be known, that some inquiries are too dangerous for human beings to make.

Keeping Secrets, Some Things Are Meant To Be, Known

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

Time spent with children is time well spent. Their little minds are not constrained by 'reality' or focused upon goals. Anything and everything is possible. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Children, Reality, Imagination

For myself, I like a universe that, includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians. A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence.

Knowledge, Science, Thinking

Carl Sagan, Jerald F. TerHorst, Allan J. Mayer, Sharon S. McKern, Laurence J. Peter (1980). “Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science”

Those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.

Wish, Prejudice, Cosmos

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.362, Ballantine Books

Has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? . . . No other human institution comes close.

Life, Reliability, Institutions

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

Virtually every major technological advance in the history of the human species - back to the invention of stone tools and the domestication of fire - has been ethically ambiguous.

Atheist, Fire, Religion

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.476, Ballantine Books

Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth. But up there in the Cosmos an inescapable perspective awaits.

Perspective, Vision, Cosmos

"Cosmos". p. 318. Book by Carl Sagan, 1980.

It's perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology.

Jobs, Rain, Technology

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.25, Ballantine Books

Otherwise we don't run the government the government runs us

Running, Government

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

The usual rejoinder to someone who says 'They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Galileo' is to say 'But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown'.

Science, Usual, Columbus

My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence is provided by such a God. We would be unappreciative of that gift if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves.

God, Passion, Religion

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

If there is life, then I believe we should do nothing to disturb that life. Mars then, belongs to the Martians, even if they are microbes.

Believe, Mars, Should

Many statements about God are confidently made by theologians on grounds that today at least sound specious. Thomas Aquinas claimed to prove that God cannot make another God, or commit suicide, or make a man without a soul, or even make a triangle whose interior angles do not equal 180 degrees. But Bolyai and Lobachevsky were able to accomplish this last feat (on a curved surface) in the nineteenth century, and they were not even approximately gods.

Suicide, Atheist, Men

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