Carl Sagan Quotes, Stars Quotes, Science Quotes

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Stars Quotes , Science Quotes

As agonizing a disease as cancer is, I do not think it can be said that our civilization is threatened by it. ... But a very plausible case can be made that our civilization is fundamentally threatened by the lack of adequate fertility control. Exponential increases of population will dominate any arithmetic increases, even those brought about by heroic technological initiatives, in the availability of food and resources, as Malthus long ago realized.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Cancer Quotes , Science Quotes

After I give lectures-on almost any subject-I am often asked, "Do you believe in UFOs?" I'm always struck by how the question is phrased, the suggestion that this is a matter of belief and not evidence. I'm almost never asked, "How good is the evidence that UFOs are alien spaceships?"

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Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence

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Football is a thinly disguised re-enactment of hunting; we played it before we were human.

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Perhaps the depth of love can be calibrated by the number of different selves that are actively involved in a given relationship.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Self Quotes , Numbers Quotes

We are at a crossroads in human history. Never before has there been a moment so simultaneously perilous and promising. We are the first species to have taken evolution into our own hands.

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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 small, the artist's signature.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Art Quotes , Nature Quotes

My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn’t believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I’m agnostic.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Believe Quotes , Views Quotes

Is mankind alone in the universe? Or are there somewhere other intelligent beings looking up into their night sky from very different worlds and asking the same kind of question?

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I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Encouragement Quotes , Children Quotes

The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer (although not with a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament)

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We have entered, almost without noticing, an age of exploration and discovery unparalleled since the Renaissance.

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Except for children (who don't know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spendtime wondering why nature is the way it is . . .

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Every cell is a triumph of natural selection, and we’re made of trillions of cells. Within us, is a little universe.

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Not all birds can fly. What separates the flyers from the walkers is the ability to take off.

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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.

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It means nothing to be open to a proposition we don't understand.

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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?

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Children Quotes , Growing Up Quotes

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.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Knowledge Quotes , Science Quotes