Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 13

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• Organic as a dandelion seed, [the ship of our imagination] will carry us to worlds of dreams and worlds of facts

  Carl Sagan

  Dream, Imagination, World

  23 Copy quote

• Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would he an unprecedented human catastrophe.

  Carl Sagan

  War, Nuclear, Fool

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• Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

  Carl Sagan

  Goal, Custodians, Purpose

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.76, Ballantine Books

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• The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn't a real god. They didn't believe in the divinity of apotheosized emperors or Olympian gods. They had a peculiar, different kind of god. So it was very easy to call people who believed in a different kind of god atheists. And that general sense that an atheist is anybody who doesn't believe exactly as I do prevails in our own time.

  Carl Sagan

  Christian, Atheist, Real

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• For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness.

  Carl Sagan

  Greatness, Failing, Fallibility

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

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• The Earth is a place. It is by no means the only place. It is not even a typical place.

  Carl Sagan

  Mean, Typical, Earth

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

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• If we do not speak for Earth, who will? If we are not committed to our own survival, who will be?

  Carl Sagan

  Survival, Earth, Speak

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.349, Ballantine Books

  9 Copy quote

• Writing a novel is like trying to solve a very long mathematical equation. Changing anything can change everything else.

  Carl Sagan

  Writing, Mathematical Equations, Long

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• I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Technology, Two

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". TV Series, Episode 13: Who Speaks for Earth?, 1990.

  7 Copy quote

• How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?

  Carl Sagan

  Smart, Doe, Murder

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

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• There is a report that says that kids who watch violent TV programs tend to be more violent when they grow up. But did the TV cause the violence, or do violent children preferentially enjoy watching violent programs?

  Carl Sagan

  Children, Growing Up, Kids

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• We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Taken, Destiny

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• Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition.

  Carl Sagan

  Comfort, Cosmos, Fleeting

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.361, Ballantine Books

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• 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. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Religion, Stressed

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.71, Ballantine Books

  62 Copy quote

• While our behavior is still significantly controlled by our genetic inheritance, we have, through our brains, a much richer opportunity to blaze new behavioral and cultural pathways on short timescales.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Opportunity, Brain

  Carl Sagan (2012). “Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence”, p.3, Ballantine Books

  7 Copy quote

• Nature does not always conform to our predispositions and preferences, to what we deem comfortable and easy to understand.

  Carl Sagan

  Doe, Easy, Preference

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.32, Ballantine Books

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• Real patriots ask questions.

  Carl Sagan

  Real, Patriot, Asks

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.538, Ballantine Books

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• There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.

  Carl Sagan

  Simple, Self, Perfect

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

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• Much of human history can, I think, be described as a gradual and sometimes painful liberation from provincialism, the emerging awareness that there is more to the world than was generally believed by our ancestors.

  Carl Sagan

  Thinking, World, Belief

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

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• An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Doe, Certain

  Carl Sagan, Tom Head (2006). “Conversations with Carl Sagan”, p.70, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• In Italy, the Inquisition was condemning people to death until the end of the eighteenth century, and inquisitional torture was not abolished in the Catholic Church until 1816. The last bastion of support for the reality of witchcraft and the necessity of punishment has been the Christian churches.

  Carl Sagan

  Christian, Atheist, Reality

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.528, Ballantine Books

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• For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled, even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven't forgotten: The open road still softly calls like a nearly forgotten song of childhood.

  Carl Sagan

  Song, Cities, Childhood

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

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• My long-time view about Christianity is that it represents an amalgam of two seemingly immiscible parts-the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul. Thomas Jefferson attempted to excise the Pauline parts of the New Testament. There wasn't much left when he was done, but it was an inspiring document.

  Carl Sagan

  Jesus, Views, Two

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• One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

  Carl Sagan

  Book, Years, Voice

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• Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Knowledge, Science, Wish

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". Book by Carl Sagan, p. 332, 1980.

  10 Copy quote

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