Carl Sagan Quotes, Powerful Quotes, Grief 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.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Powerful Quotes , Grief Quotes

Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Suicidal Quotes , Science Quotes

In the vastness of the Cosmos there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours.

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Modern Darwinism makes it abundantly clear that many less ruthless traits, some not always admired by robber barons and Fuhrers - altruism, general intelligence, compassion - may be the key to survival.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Life Quotes , Compassion Quotes

Wisdom lies in understanding our limitations.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Lying Quotes , Understanding Quotes

In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Men Quotes , Mozambique Quotes

We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Respect Quotes , Science Quotes

Coal, oil and gas are called fossil fuels, because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives. - Dr. Carl Sagan

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Running Quotes , Humble Quotes

Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Love Quotes , Inspirational Quotes

I’m struck again by the irony that spaceflight-conceived in the cauldron of nationalist rivalries and hatreds-brings with it a stunning transnational vision. You spend even a little time contemplating the Earth from orbit and the most deeply engrained nationalisms begin to erode. They seem the squabbles of mites on a plum.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Hatred Quotes , Vision Quotes

The old appeals to racial, sexual and religious chauvinism to rabid nationalist fervor, are beginning not to work.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Religious Quotes , Zeitgeist Quotes

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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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Stars Quotes , Technology Quotes

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , God Quotes , Spiritual Quotes

We need to reduce military budgets; raise living standards; engender respect for learning; support science, scholarship, invention, and industry; promote free inquiry; reduce domestic coercion; involve the workers more in managerial decisions; and promote genuine respect and understanding derived from an acknowledgement of our common humanity and our common jeopardy.

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

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If the press descended, the science would surely suffer.

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So those who wished for some central cosmic purpose for us, or at least our world, or at least our solar system, or at least our galaxy, have been disappointed, progressively disappointed. The universe is not responsive to our ambitious expectations.

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Nobody listens to mathematicians.

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I consider it an extremely dangerous doctrine, because the more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Philosophy Quotes , Religion Quotes

Time spent with children is time well spent. Their little minds are not constrained by 'reality' or focused upon goals. Anything and everything is possible. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Children Quotes , Reality Quotes