Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death.


Carl Sagan

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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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It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected fi...
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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 nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pi...
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Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
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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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For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves, ... This is a ...
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The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. . -Carl Sagan.
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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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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 ...
CARL SAGAN
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...
CARL SAGAN
If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in ...
CARL SAGAN
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...
CARL SAGAN
The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense ...
CARL SAGAN
But nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine.
CARL SAGAN
Books, purchasable at low cost, permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wis...
CARL SAGAN
I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States...
CARL SAGAN
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CARL SAGAN
We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a pre...
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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 ...
CARL SAGAN
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
CARL SAGAN
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
CARL SAGAN
The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matc...
CARL SAGAN
Some information is classified legitimately; as with military hardware, secrecy sometimes really is ...
CARL SAGAN
Understanding is a kind of ecstasy
CARL SAGAN
You probably don't need more weapons than what's required to destroy every city on earth. Th...
CARL SAGAN
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...
CARL SAGAN
What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on whic...
CARL SAGAN
You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on ...
CARL SAGAN
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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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 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...
CARL SAGAN
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 ...
CARL SAGAN
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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The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
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CARL SAGAN
[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 ...
CARL SAGAN
It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of me...
CARL SAGAN
The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us ...
CARL SAGAN
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ours...
CARL SAGAN
Ann Druyan suggests an experiment: Look back again at the pale blue dot of the preceding chapter. Ta...
CARL SAGAN
We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal's 'Pensees' and read, 'I am...
CARL SAGAN
We have swept through all of the planets in the solar system, from Mercury to Neptune, in a historic...
CARL SAGAN
The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they ...
CARL SAGAN
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