Carl Sagan Quotes, Stress Quotes, Years Quotes

For years I've been stressing with regard to UFOs that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

5 years ago

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A single message from space will show that it is possible to live through technological adolescence. . . . It is possible that the future of human civilization depends on the receipt of interstellar messages.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Moon Quotes , Space Quotes

For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Religious Quotes , Time Quotes

I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgments.

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[Kepler] preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, and that is the heart of science.

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You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.

5 years ago

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Fun Quotes , Science 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.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Religious Quotes , Issues Quotes

Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Life Quotes

The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.

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The difference between physics and metaphysics is not that the practitioners of one are smarter than the practitioners of the other. The difference is that the metaphysicist has no laboratory.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Differences Quotes , Physics Quotes

we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Patience Quotes , Our World Quotes

In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that in some fields-mathematics, physics, some others-the great discoveries are almost entirely made by youngsters.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Science Quotes , Discovery Quotes

Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

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But I could be wrong.

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The dumbing down of America is evident in the slow decay of substantive content, a kind of celebration of ignorance.

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One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

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The prediction I can make with the highest confidence is that the most amazing discoveries will be the ones we are not today wise enough to foresee.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Wise Quotes , Discovery Quotes

What is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish useful ideas from the worthless ones.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Hands Quotes , Ideas Quotes

I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Who We Are Quotes

At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes-an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Attitude Quotes , Heart Quotes