Carl Sagan Quotes, Stars Quotes, Distance Quotes

The immense distances to the stars and the galaxies mean that we see everything ins pace int he past, some as they were before the Earth came to be. Telescopes are time machines.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Stars Quotes , Distance Quotes

Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Comforting Quotes , Religion Quotes

The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Pain Quotes , Important Quotes

All inquiries carry with them some element of risk.

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It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power; we are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible, and which are not.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Smart Quotes , Knowledge Quotes

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

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Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity.

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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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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Errors Quotes , Inability Quotes

The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them - the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Stupid Quotes , Believe Quotes

First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Cosmos Quotes , Existentialism Quotes

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Science Quotes , Technology Quotes

We humans look rather different from a tree. Without a doubt we perceive the world differently than a tree does. But down deep, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Heart Quotes , Tree Quotes

Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don't conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything - new ideas and established wisdom.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Ideas Quotes

If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize that we were alone?

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On the day that we do discover that we are not alone, our society may begin to evolve and transform in some incredible and wondrous new ways.

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Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense the stirring of a breeze.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Sea Quotes , Sailor Quotes

A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Funny Quotes

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Nature Quotes

In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It's their nature. They can't help it.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Running Quotes , Civilization Quotes