Carl Sagan Quotes About Earth

Quotes about: Earth

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A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet. One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time.

Carl Sagan

Lonely, War, Ocean

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 13: "Who Speaks for Earth?", 1990.
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?

Carl Sagan

Nuclear, Earth, Speak

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.357, Ballantine Books
A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet.

Carl Sagan

War, Earth, Consciousness

"Cosmos". TV Mini-Series, www.imdb.com. 1980.
The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

Carl Sagan

Stars, Ocean, Long

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Documentary (1990 Update). Episode 1: "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean", 1990.
We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged.

Carl Sagan

Ocean, Space, Earth

"Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". TV Series, Episode 1: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean, 1990.
The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.

Carl Sagan

Running, Night, Ideas

"Cosmos". Book by Carl Sagan, 1980.
If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.

Carl Sagan

Loyalty, Community, Cosmos

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.371, Ballantine Books
After the earth dies, some 5 billion years from now, after it's burned to a crisp, or even swallowed by the Sun, there will be other worlds and stars and galaxies coming into being - and they will know nothing of a place once called Earth.

Carl Sagan

Stars, Years, Other Worlds

Carl Sagan (1994). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, Random House Incorporated
An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth - scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, the comics, and many books - might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity, and consumerism. We keep at it, and through constant repetition many of them finally get it.

Carl Sagan

Children, Book, Teaching

Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.66, Ballantine Books
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Carl Sagan

Humility, Thinking, Compassion

Carl Sagan (1994). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, Random House Incorporated
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.

Carl Sagan

Ocean, Sea, Water

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.26, Ballantine Books
Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group Groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together [is] surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.

Carl Sagan

Loyalty, Character, People

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.371, Ballantine Books
National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.

Carl Sagan

Religious, Stars, Science

"Cosmos". p. 318. Book by Carl Sagan, 1980.
A blade of grass is a commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars will know the value of a patch of green. And if a blade of grass is priceless, what is the value of a human being?

Carl Sagan

Miracle, Would Be, Mars

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.309, 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.

Carl Sagan

Eye, Errors, Zest
We are rare and precious because we are alive, because we can think as well as we can. We are privileged to influence and perhaps control our future. I believe we have an obligation to fight for life on Earth - not just for ourselves, but for all those, humans and others, who came before us, and to whom we are beholden, and for all those who, if we are wise enough, will come after.

Carl Sagan

Wise, Believe, Fighting

Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.74, Ballantine Books
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

Carl Sagan

Cosmos, Earth, Vastness

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.28, Ballantine Books
Coal, oil and gas are called fossil fuels, because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives. - Dr. Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Running, Humble, Long Ago

Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.104, Ballantine Books
If you look at Earth from space you see a dot, that's here. That's home. That's us. It underscores the responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Carl Sagan

Responsibility, Home, Blue

Source: www.cbsnews.com
Some 5 billion years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth... then the sun will begin to die, life will be extinguished, the oceans will boil and evaporate away.

Carl Sagan

Ocean, Perfect Days, Years
When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.

Carl Sagan

Inspirational, Educational, Knowledge
There is every reason to think that in the coming years Mars and its mysteries will become increasingly familiar to the inhabitants of the Planet Earth.

Carl Sagan

Thinking, Years, Mars
The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean.

Carl Sagan

Ocean, Cosmos, Ankles

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.26, Ballantine Books
There is perhaps no better a demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.

Carl Sagan

Space, Earth Day, Tiny

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.29, Ballantine Books
The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth.

Carl Sagan

Beach, Stars, Numbers

Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.221, Ballantine Books

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Born: November 9, 1934
Died: December 20, 1996
Occupation: Astronomer
Cite this Page: Citation

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