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Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 7

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

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.

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.

Self, Perfect, Tools

My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn’t believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I’m agnostic.

Believe, Views, Agnostic

When permitted to listen to alternative opinions and engage in substantive debate, people have been known to change their minds. It can happen.

People, Mind, Alternatives

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

There is never only ONE of anything in nature.

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.

Inspirational, Funny, Reading

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

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.

Book, Writing, People

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

Not all birds can fly. What separates the flyers from the walkers is the ability to take off.

Bird, Aviation, Flyers

The sacred truth of science is that there are no sacred truths.

Sacred

We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers. We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?

Nuclear, Earth, Speak

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.357, Ballantine Books

Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.

Smart, Stupid, Equal

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.310, Ballantine Books

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.

Science, Together, Atoms

"The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God". Book by Carl Sagan, 2006.

Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.

Children, Kids, Science

Psychology Today Interview, www.psychologytoday.com. January 1, 1996.

We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.

Stars, Stuff, Sunlight

Atoms are mainly empty space. Matter is composed chiefly of nothing.

Space, Atoms, Matter

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.243, Ballantine Books

You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility.

Religious, Agnostic, Wells

Carl Sagan (1997). “Contact”, p.169, Simon and Schuster

When you look more generally at life on Earth, you find that it is all the same kind of life. There are not many different kinds; there's only one kind. It uses about fifty fundamental biological building blocks, organic molecules.

Block, Molecules, Different

Carl Sagan (2006). “The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God”, p.76, Penguin

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.

Memories, Fall, Voice

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

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

Stars, Sea, Space

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

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

Rights, Oath Of Office, Wish

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

We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.

Lying, Imagination, Wish

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 1: "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean", 1990.

Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense the stirring of a breeze.

Sea, Sailor, Breeze

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.337, Ballantine Books

The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.

Stars, Sky, One Day

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 7: "The Backbone of Night", 1990.

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

Able, Imagine, Subtle

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

My wonder button is being pushed all the time.

Buttons, Wonder

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.

Science, Thinking, People

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

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