Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 19

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• So those who wished for some central cosmic purpose for us, or at least our world, or at least our solar system, or at least our galaxy, have been disappointed, progressively disappointed. The universe is not responsive to our ambitious expectations.

  Carl Sagan

  Our World, Expectations, Ambitious

  Carl Sagan (2006). “The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God”, p.54, Penguin

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• In exchange for freedom of inquiry, scientists are obliged to explain their work.

  Carl Sagan

  Inquiry, Scientist, Obliged

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.14, Ballantine Books

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• What does it mean for a civilisation to be a million years old? We have had radio telescopes and spaceships for a few decades; our technical civilisation is a few hundred years old ... an advanced civilisation millions of years old is as much beyond us as we are beyond a bushbaby or a macaque

  Carl Sagan

  Mean, Technology, Years

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.337, Ballantine Books

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• For years I've been stressing with regard to UFOs that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

  Carl Sagan

  Stress, Years, Atheism

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium”, p.46, Ballantine Books

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• Nobody listens to mathematicians.

  Carl Sagan

  Mathematician

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.289, Ballantine Books

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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 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Israel, Years

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

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Running, Jobs, Mistake

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Light, Technique

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

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

  Carl Sagan

  Tree, Stuff, Made

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Years, Together, Atoms

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

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Survivor, Kicking

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Keeping Secrets, Some Things Are Meant To Be, Known

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

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Children, Reality, Imagination

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

  Carl Sagan

  Growing Up, Answers, Firsts

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Respect, Science, Intelligent

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

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

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Believe, Thinking

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

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

  Carl Sagan

  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.

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

  Carl Sagan

  Sky, Tree, Lovely

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

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

  Carl Sagan

  Binary, Yes Or No, Crisps

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

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  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”

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• 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

  Wish, Prejudice, Cosmos

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

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

  Carl Sagan

  Life, Reliability, Institutions

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

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• 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'.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Usual, Columbus

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  God, Passion, Religion

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

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• 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.

  Carl Sagan

  Suicide, Atheist, Men

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