Quotes by Carl Sagan with reason

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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  • If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?
    The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995) Ch. 1 : The Most Precious Thing
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • The uniqueness of humans has been claimed on many grounds, but most often because of our tool-making, culture, language, reason and morality. We have them, the other animals don't, and - so the argument goes - that's that.
    ― Carl Sagan
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