Quotes by Carl Sagan with history

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist and author

Lived from: 1934 - 1996

Category: Scientists | Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 9 november 1934 Died: 20 december 1996

  • There is a lurking fear that some things are 'not meant' to be known, that some inquiries are too dangerous for human being to make.
  • We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
  • History is full of people who out of fear or ignorance or the lust for power have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us. We must not let it happen again.
  • If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
  • There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s perfectly all right: it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process.
  • Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were not that foolish. It makes sense to revere the Sun and the stars, for we are their children.
  • Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.
  • They (i. e., the Pythagoreans) did not advocate the free confrontation of conflicting points of view. Instead, like all orthodox religions, they practised a rigidity that prevented them from correcting their errors.
  • One of the greatest gifts adults can give - to their offspring and to their society - is to read to children.
  • You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe.
  • Every thinking person fears nuclear war and every technological nation plans for it. Everyone knows it's madness, and every country has an excuse.
  • Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever it 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?
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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, clear
  • A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.
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Quotes 1 till 7 of 7.

  • Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.
    The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995) Ch. 1 : The Most Precious Thing
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • Books tap the wisdom of our species - the greatest minds, the best teachers - from all over the world and from all our history. And they're patient.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • History is full of people who out of fear or ignorance or the lust for power have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us. We must not let it happen again.
    Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990) 36 min 20 sec
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • Much of human history can, I think, be described as a gradual and sometimes painful liberation from provincialism, the emerging awareness that there is more to the world than was generally believed by our ancestors.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • 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. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • We humans appear on the cosmic calendar so recently that our recorded history occupies only the last few seconds of the last minute of December 31st.
    Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990) 57 min 0 sec
    ― Carl Sagan
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What are the most famous quotes from Carl Sagan?

The two most famous quotes from Carl Sagan are:

  • "Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history."
  • "Books tap the wisdom of our species - the greatest minds, the best teachers - from all over the world and from all our history. And they're patient."

When did Carl Sagan live?

Carl Sagan was born in 1934 and died in the year 1996.