• Categories
  • Carl Sagan Quotes   592
  • What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Believe Quotes , Two Quotes
  • Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Mistake Quotes , Past Quotes
  • Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Knowledge Quotes , Science Quotes
  • Because men, compared to male chimps, have such relatively small testicles (large testicles indicate a species where many males mate, one after the other, with the same female), we might guess that promiscuous societies were uncommon in the immediate human past.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Past Quotes , Men Quotes
  • One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its very heart. Some may consider this an overbroad characterization, but to me every time we exercise self-criticism, every time we test our ideas against the outside world, we are doing science. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hopes and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Heart Quotes , Exercise Quotes
  • The claim is also sometimes made that science is as arbitrary or irrational as all other claims to knowledge, or that reason itself is an illusion. As Ethan Allen said Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are labouring to dethrone. If they argue without reason, which they must do, in order to be consistent with themselves, they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Science Quotes , Order Quotes
  • Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Self Esteem Quotes , Past Quotes