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  • Carl Sagan Quotes   592
  • We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Stars Quotes , Journey Quotes
  • Religions contradict one another-on small matters, such as whether we should put on a hat or take one off on entering a house of worship, or whether we should eat beef and eschew pork or the other way around, all the way to the most central issues, such as whether there are no gods, one God, or many gods.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Religious Quotes , Issues Quotes
  • These are all cases of proved or presumptive baloney. A deception arises, sometimes innocently but collaboratively, sometimes with cynical premeditation. Usually the victim is caught up in a powerful emotion -- wonder, fear, greed, grief. Credulous acceptance of baloney can cost you money; that's what P. T. Barnum meant when he said, 'There's a sucker born every minute.' But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking, the results can be catastrophic -- however sympathetic we may be to those who have bought the baloney.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Powerful Quotes , Grief 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
  • That kind of skeptical, questioning, "don't accept what authority tells you" attitude of science - is also nearly identical to the attitude of mind necessary for a functioning democracy. Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Attitude Quotes , Thinking Quotes
  • The lifetime of a human being is measured by decades, the lifetime of the Sun is a hundred million times longer. Compared to a star, we are like mayflies, fleeting ephemeral creatures who live out their lives in the course of a single day.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Stars Quotes , Fleeting Quotes
  • The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Ocean Quotes , Sea Quotes
  • What does it mean for a civilisation to be a million years old? We have had radio telescopes and spaceships for a few decades; our technical civilisation is a few hundred years old ... an advanced civilisation millions of years old is as much beyond us as we are beyond a bushbaby or a macaque
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Mean Quotes , Technology Quotes
  • The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Memories Quotes , Fall Quotes
  • If intelligence is our only edge, we must learn to use it better, to shape it, to understand its limitations and deficiencies -- to use it as cats use stealth, as katydids use camouflage -- to make it the tool of our survival.
  • 5 years ago



    Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Cat Quotes , Survival Quotes