It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.


Carl Sagan

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Carl Sagan spoke fluently between biology and geology and astrophysics and physics. If you move flue...
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In the 1970s, we had Carl Sagan, and he was so suave with his turtleneck and his tweed jacket. And h...
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Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They wi...
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I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only ...
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I want Carl Sagan to explain the sky to me.
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In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to ...
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Carl Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' is where I got the title 'Momentary Masters.'
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To stand on the
brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation—with no feeli...
ASK AND IT IS GIVEN
We were sitting there watching the coffin being nailed shut, and what was inside was imagination and...
BRUCE MURRAY
The trouble is the truth isn’t an easy sell. The herd has always, and will forever, choose the nic...
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When a Carl Sagan appears someone who really has that astonishing combination of poetry, of knowledg...
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If you look up at the Milky Way through the eyes of Carl Sagan, you get a feeling in your chest of s...
RICHARD DAWKINS
My humor is my creativity, and my skepticism is a gift.
J. TILLMAN
My humor is my creativity, and my skepticism is a gift.
JOSH TILLMAN
That's what drives science though: trying to find out the way things are, the way they were, and the...
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When a Carl Sagan appears — someone who really has that astonishing combination of poetry, of knowl...
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Observation: I can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs.
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By my reckoning, I'm about 100 kilometers from Pathfinder. Technically it's called "Carl Sagan Memor...
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I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem ye...
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I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promi...
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Planetary exploration satisfies our inclination for great enterprises and wanderings and quests that...
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The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought.
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The disturbing truth about science communication is that we have theories and ways of delivering mes...
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Its attitude, which it has preached and practiced, is skepticism. Now, it finds, the public is apply...
THOMAS GRIFFITH
When I was in my teens, Yehudi Menuhin, who was at work on his project 'The Music of Man,' i...
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All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for imposto...
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We have tears in our eyes
As we wave our goodbyes,
We so loved being with you, we three. ROALD DAHL
The difference between sex and love is that sex relieves tension and love causes it.
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We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.
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And what greater might do we possess as human beings than our capacity to question and to learn?
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Just as there are those who accept every UFO report at face value, there are also those who dismiss ...
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The Biggest Threat to our Democracy, Freedoms and Future is Leadership that fosters and Appeases the...
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The primary tool of science is skepticism, whose light shrivels unquestioning faith
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There's always been a little bit of tension between the writers of science fiction literature an...
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It is the difference between men and women, not the sameness, that creates the tension and the del...
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Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
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It is the science of design married with the creativity of business.
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Consciousness is the awareness that emerges out of the dialectical tension between possibilities and...
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Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river...
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The Science Channel has done a beautiful job of enhancing the visuals by giving new visual expressio...
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In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right.
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In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right
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Creativity is putting your imagination to work, and it's produced the most extraordinary results...
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Science has produced such powerful weapons that in a war between great powers there would be neither...
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My main reason for scepticism about the Huxley/Sagan theory is that the human brain is demonstrably ...
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There is a kind of invisible thread between the actor and the audience, and when it's there it&#...
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I think I set myself on a course to become a scientist around about the time that Carl Sagan's &...
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The hallmark of our age is the tension between aspirations and sluggish institutions.
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There is tension between the values of modern society and the principles of Islam.
PIM FORTUYN
Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience.
MASARU IBUKA
Can you be sure that others have not come before you and destroyed the pristine state of the native ...
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Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistak...
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The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us ...
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you k...
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It's absolutely stunning and upsetting to hear. He's certainly one of the major playwrights that Ame...
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The predicament of political relations between China and Japan has produced negative influence in ma...
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I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It i...
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Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good it is to control the mind....
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Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: sk...
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The bottom line is there is no communication between QDC and the town. The town learns about QDC ini...
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Science means constantly walking a tightrope between blind faith and curiosity; between expertise an...
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The battle is not physical, it is spiritual and your mind is the battleground. Keep your mind pure a...
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Then that's what the Northern Lights are. All the lives that we're not living.
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I describe management as arts, crafts and science. It is a practice that draws on arts, craft and sc...
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It takes a fearless, unflinching love and deep humility to accept the universe as it is. The most ef...
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The logic of validation allows us to move between the two limits of dogmatism and skepticism.
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The Argentine tango is very special to me because it's full of sensuality. The chemistry between...
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Throughout America's young history there has been a necessary tension between the individual and...
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The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin ev...
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I love you." she whispered into the rough wool of his sweater.
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I make mistakes. That's what I do. I
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And what good is a voice when so few will listen?
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I don't think she's a lesbian. I think she just ran out of men. [Charlotte]
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I have quite a lot of plastic sunglasses. It's just a nice accessory, it adds a final thing, and...
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I lived in Greece for about four years of my life, and living there had a huge impact on my life gro...
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I love natural beauty, and I think it's your best look, but I think makeup as an artist is so tr...
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I think celebrity culture and sexuality in pop music is really important, but I want there to be an ...
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I'm not really part of that 'L.A. thing' or that celebrity culture. I'm more like so...
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This obsession with celebrity culture is really unhealthy. I don't want to live my life like tha...
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Even when I see a beautiful woman, I think, 'Aw, her life must be amazing.' Everyone does it...
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Blonde symbolises sexuality and power - it holds very different connotations. The archetypal star ha...
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Love is really my nemesis. I never really allowed myself to indulge in such basic things because I w...
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Britney Spears is a big influence. Huge. I think people thought I was joking about that for a long t...
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Puberty is a phase... fifteen years of rejection is a lifestyle. [Stanford]
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I criticized the whole American songwriting industry and the pop side of it and I was bitter about i...
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I often take things I find in vintage crawls and hand them to a very good seamstress, who then repli...
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There is a wide, yawning black infinity. In every direction, the extension is endless; the sensation...
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.
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If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.
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Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires int...
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Imagine that I am riding a bicycle toward you. As I approach an intersection I nearly collide, so it...
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A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science...
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Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to ...
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The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
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The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pi...
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Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we ...
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A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called
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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 toget...
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The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.
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Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
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Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
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In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch with...
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Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live...
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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to re...
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Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.
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People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. The last way for skeptics to get the attenti...
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There is today-in a time when old beliefs are withering-a kind of philosophical hunger, a need to kn...
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The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all ...
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We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and techno...
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We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our or...
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In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written sma...
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Books tap the wisdom of our species -- the greatest minds, the best teachers -- from all over the wo...
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If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
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When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'...
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Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. ...
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Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
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If we like them, they're freedom fighters . . . If we don't like them, they're terrorists. In the un...
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If the world is to be understood, if we are to avoid such logical paradoxes when traveling at high s...
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We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
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What's the harm of a little mystification? It sure beats boring statistical analyses.
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They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Newton. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
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I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set ...
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A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try ...
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In our time, we have sifted the sands of Mars, we have established a presence there, we have fulfill...
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The significance of a finding that there are other beings who share this universe with us would be a...
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For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves, ... This is a ...
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Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
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Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. -Carl Sa...
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We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and techno...
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Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.
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It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fif...
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Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.
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The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. . -Carl Sagan.
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Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it i...
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Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people r...
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All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single lar...
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All inquires carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will c...
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We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows a...
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Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were not that foolish.
It makes sense to revere the S...
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But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geni...
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I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem y...
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I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever ...
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I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary s...
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Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowe...
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It's been said that astronomy is a humbling and, I might add, a character-building experience.
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Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
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The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.
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Even these stars, which seem so numerous, are as sand, as dust - or less than dust - in the enormity...
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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucke...
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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however ...
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Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in ...
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It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfyi...
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No other planet in the solar system is a suitable home for human beings; it's this world or noth...
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Today, we're still loaded down - and, to some extent, embarrassed - by ancient myths, but we res...
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We hunger to understand, so we invent myths about how we imagine the world is constructed - and they...
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Can you be sure that others have not come before you and destroyed the pristine state of the native ...
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Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understand...
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I would suggest that science is, at least in my part, informed worship.
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We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other sta...
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A blade of grass is a commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars w...
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The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosm...
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How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than...
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Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people r...
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All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for...
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Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They wi...
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When you're in love, you want to tell the world. My lifelong love affair with science
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Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get ...
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I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only ...
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Christianity may be good and Satanism evil. Under the Constitution, however, both are neutral. This ...
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But I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anyt...
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Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the world.
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One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its...
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In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to ...
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I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem ye...
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Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fir...
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I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. Why is the Moon round?...
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There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate ...
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There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.
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We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and...
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The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Je...
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If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in ...
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Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly o...
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An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth - scrutinizing what we mainly present to our child...
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The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense ...
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But nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine.
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Books, purchasable at low cost, permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wis...
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I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States...
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We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and te...
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We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a pre...
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We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows a...
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The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.
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The boundary between space and the earth is purely arbitrary. And I'll probably always be intere...
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If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
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Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how ...
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For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
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The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matc...
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Some information is classified legitimately; as with military hardware, secrecy sometimes really is ...
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Understanding is a kind of ecstasy
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You probably don't need more weapons than what's required to destroy every city on earth. Th...
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The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may...
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Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever t...
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Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
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The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps pr...
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What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on whic...
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You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on ...
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It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fift...
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You have to know the past to understand the present.
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We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.
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Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envisio...
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In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my positio...
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A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity...
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Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowe...
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One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years....
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It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fif...
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In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bil...
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If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe...
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It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most sk...
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We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 ...
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Are we an exceptionally unlikely accident or is the universe brimming over with intelligence? (It's)...
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When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - ...
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We start out a million years ago in a small community on some grassy plain; we hunt animals, have ch...
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Black holes may be apertures to elsewhen. Were we to plunge down a black hole, we would re-emerge, i...
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It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.
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The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all ...
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I don't want to believe. I want to know.
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In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my positio...
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You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such...
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I've written a number of books that have to do with the evolution of humans, human intelligence,...
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Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us ...
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The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from ...
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The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and c...
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The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
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The near side of a galaxy is tens of thousands of light-years closer to us than the far side; thus w...
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[When a religious couple wrote to Sagan about fulfilled prophecies, he wrote back in May 1996...
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I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering ...
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It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of me...
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The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us ...
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The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ours...
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Ann Druyan suggests an experiment: Look back again at the pale blue dot of the preceding chapter. Ta...
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We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal's 'Pensees' and read, 'I am...
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We have swept through all of the planets in the solar system, from Mercury to Neptune, in a historic...
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The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they ...
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We tend to hear much more about the splendors returned than the ships that brought them or the shipw...
CARL SAGAN
For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Ri...
CARL SAGAN
Cutting off fundamental, curiosity-driven science is like eating the seed corn. We may have a little...
CARL SAGAN
Let's see if I got this right," she would say to herself. "I've taken an inert gas that's in the air...
CARL SAGAN
Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever valu...
CARL SAGAN
I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promi...
CARL SAGAN
But, Jefferson worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - ar...
CARL SAGAN
Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for res...
CARL SAGAN
At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes--an op...
CARL SAGAN
An atheist is someone who is certain that God doesn't exist, someone who has compelling evidence aga...
CARL SAGAN
Many religions have attempted to make statues of their gods very large, and the idea, I suppose, is ...
CARL SAGAN
Those at too great a distance may, I am well are, mistake ignorance for perspective.
CARL SAGAN
It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most sk...
CARL SAGAN
Once we lose our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Univer...
CARL SAGAN
To live in the hearts we leave behind is to live forever.
CARL SAGAN
As science advances, there seems to be less and less for God to do. It's a big universe, of course, ...
CARL SAGAN
We have examined the universe in space and seen that we live on a mote of dust circling a humdrum st...
CARL SAGAN
It is said that men may not be the dreams of the god, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men...
CARL SAGAN
If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world ...
CARL SAGAN
Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. Those afraid ...
CARL SAGAN
Observation: I can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs.
CARL SAGAN
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.
CARL SAGAN
Atoms are mainly empty space. Matter is composed chiefly of nothing.
CARL SAGAN
We inhabit a universe where atoms are made in the centers of stars; where each second a thousand sun...
CARL SAGAN
You are worth about 3 dollars worth in chemicals.
CARL SAGAN
Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries and then flower in the most unpromising soi...
CARL SAGAN
The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what...
CARL SAGAN
One glance at (a book) and you hear the voice of another person - perhaps someone dead for thousands...
CARL SAGAN
Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.
CARL SAGAN
The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immen...
CARL SAGAN
If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a ...
CARL SAGAN
Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered lo...
CARL SAGAN
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
CARL SAGAN
we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers
CARL SAGAN
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
CARL SAGAN