There is a wide, yawning black infinity. In every direction, the extension is endless; the sensation...
CARL SAGAN But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniu...
CARL SAGAN In our obscurity - in all this vastness - there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to sav...
CARL SAGAN Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
CARL SAGAN The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It's not that there&#...
CARL SAGAN The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
CARL SAGAN Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.
CARL SAGAN If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.
CARL SAGAN It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected fi...
CARL SAGAN Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires int...
CARL SAGAN Imagine that I am riding a bicycle toward you. As I approach an intersection I nearly collide, so it...
CARL SAGAN A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science...
CARL SAGAN Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you k...
CARL SAGAN Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to ...
CARL SAGAN The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
CARL SAGAN The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pi...
CARL SAGAN Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we ...
CARL SAGAN A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called
CARL SAGAN The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing ...
CARL SAGAN The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put toget...
CARL SAGAN The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.
CARL SAGAN Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
CARL SAGAN Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
CARL SAGAN In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch with...
CARL SAGAN Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live...
CARL SAGAN Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we r...
CARL SAGAN One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to re...
CARL SAGAN Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.
CARL SAGAN People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. The last way for skeptics to get the attenti...
CARL SAGAN There is today-in a time when old beliefs are withering-a kind of philosophical hunger, a need to kn...
CARL SAGAN The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all ...
CARL SAGAN We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and techno...
CARL SAGAN We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our or...
CARL SAGAN In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written sma...
CARL SAGAN Books tap the wisdom of our species -- the greatest minds, the best teachers -- from all over the wo...
CARL SAGAN If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
CARL SAGAN When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'...
CARL SAGAN Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. ...
CARL SAGAN Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
CARL SAGAN If we like them, they're freedom fighters . . . If we don't like them, they're terrorists. In the un...
CARL SAGAN If the world is to be understood, if we are to avoid such logical paradoxes when traveling at high s...
CARL SAGAN We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
CARL SAGAN What's the harm of a little mystification? It sure beats boring statistical analyses.
CARL SAGAN They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Newton. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
CARL SAGAN I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set ...
CARL SAGAN A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try ...
CARL SAGAN In our time, we have sifted the sands of Mars, we have established a presence there, we have fulfill...
CARL SAGAN The significance of a finding that there are other beings who share this universe with us would be a...
CARL SAGAN For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves, ... This is a ...
CARL SAGAN Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
CARL SAGAN Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. -Carl Sa...
CARL SAGAN We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and techno...
CARL SAGAN Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.
CARL SAGAN It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fif...
CARL SAGAN Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.
CARL SAGAN The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. . -Carl Sagan.
CARL SAGAN Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it i...
CARL SAGAN Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people r...
CARL SAGAN All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single lar...
CARL SAGAN All inquires carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will c...
CARL SAGAN We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows a...
CARL SAGAN Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were not that foolish.
It makes sense to revere the S...
CARL SAGAN But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geni...
CARL SAGAN I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem y...
CARL SAGAN I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever ...
CARL SAGAN I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary s...
CARL SAGAN Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowe...
CARL SAGAN It's been said that astronomy is a humbling and, I might add, a character-building experience.
CARL SAGAN Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
CARL SAGAN The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.
CARL SAGAN Even these stars, which seem so numerous, are as sand, as dust - or less than dust - in the enormity...
CARL SAGAN Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucke...
CARL SAGAN For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however ...
CARL SAGAN Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in ...
CARL SAGAN It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfyi...
CARL SAGAN No other planet in the solar system is a suitable home for human beings; it's this world or noth...
CARL SAGAN Today, we're still loaded down - and, to some extent, embarrassed - by ancient myths, but we res...
CARL SAGAN We hunger to understand, so we invent myths about how we imagine the world is constructed - and they...
CARL SAGAN Can you be sure that others have not come before you and destroyed the pristine state of the native ...
CARL SAGAN Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understand...
CARL SAGAN I would suggest that science is, at least in my part, informed worship.
CARL SAGAN We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other sta...
CARL SAGAN A blade of grass is a commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars w...
CARL SAGAN The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosm...
CARL SAGAN How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than...
CARL SAGAN Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people r...
CARL SAGAN All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for...
CARL SAGAN Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They wi...
CARL SAGAN When you're in love, you want to tell the world. My lifelong love affair with science
CARL SAGAN Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get ...
CARL SAGAN I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only ...
CARL SAGAN Christianity may be good and Satanism evil. Under the Constitution, however, both are neutral. This ...
CARL SAGAN But I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anyt...
CARL SAGAN Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the world.
CARL SAGAN One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its...
CARL SAGAN In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to ...
CARL SAGAN I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem ye...
CARL SAGAN Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fir...
CARL SAGAN I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. Why is the Moon round?...
CARL SAGAN 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.
CARL SAGAN We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and...
CARL SAGAN 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...
CARL SAGAN 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 We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and te...
CARL SAGAN We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a pre...
CARL SAGAN We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows a...
CARL SAGAN The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.
CARL SAGAN The boundary between space and the earth is purely arbitrary. And I'll probably always be intere...
CARL SAGAN If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
CARL SAGAN 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...
CARL SAGAN Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever t...
CARL SAGAN Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
CARL SAGAN 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...
CARL SAGAN You have to know the past to understand the present.
CARL SAGAN We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.
CARL SAGAN Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envisio...
CARL SAGAN In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my positio...
CARL SAGAN A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity...
CARL SAGAN Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowe...
CARL SAGAN One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years....
CARL SAGAN It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fif...
CARL SAGAN In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bil...
CARL SAGAN If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe...
CARL SAGAN It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most sk...
CARL SAGAN We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 ...
CARL SAGAN Are we an exceptionally unlikely accident or is the universe brimming over with intelligence? (It's)...
CARL SAGAN When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - ...
CARL SAGAN We start out a million years ago in a small community on some grassy plain; we hunt animals, have ch...
CARL SAGAN 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.
CARL SAGAN 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.
CARL SAGAN In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my positio...
CARL SAGAN You're an interesting species. An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such...
CARL SAGAN I've written a number of books that have to do with the evolution of humans, human intelligence,...
CARL SAGAN Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us ...
CARL SAGAN The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from ...
CARL SAGAN The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and c...
CARL SAGAN The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
CARL SAGAN The near side of a galaxy is tens of thousands of light-years closer to us than the far side; thus w...
CARL SAGAN [When a religious couple wrote to Sagan about fulfilled prophecies, he wrote back in May 1996...
CARL SAGAN 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 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