Quotes by Carl Sagan

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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  • A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
    Contact (1985) Ch. 14
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • Be grateful everyday for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • I don't want to believe. I want to know.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves.
    Ann Druyan (2011) 354
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • Some racists still reject the plain testimony written in the DNA that all the races are not only human but nearly indistinguishable.
    Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (2011) 467
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • 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, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break th
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • 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.
    Billions and Billions: Thoughts of Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium (1997) Ch. 14, The Common Enemy.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1... no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger still.
    Cosmos (1980)
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • A tiny blue dot set in a sunbeam. Here it is. That's where we live. That's home. We humans are one species and this is our world. It is our responsibility to cherish it. Of all the worlds in our solar system, the only one so far as we know, graced by life.
    Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990) 58 min 56 sec
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • Accommodation to change, the thoughtful pursuit of alternative futures are keys to the survival of civilization and perhaps of the human species.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • 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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  • After the earth dies, some 5 billion years from now, after it's burned to a crisp, or even swallowed by the Sun, there will be other worlds and stars and galaxies coming into being - and they will know nothing of a place once called Earth.
    Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • All inquires carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid.
    (2006)
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • Anything you don't understand, Mr. Rankin, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence. You simply turn your mind off and say God did it.
    Contact (1985) Ch. 10 (p. 166)
    ― Carl Sagan
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  • Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy.
    Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (2011) 263
    ― 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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  • But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
    ― Carl Sagan
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What are the most famous quotes from Carl Sagan?

The two most famous quotes from Carl Sagan are:

  • "A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."
  • "Be grateful everyday for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides."

When did Carl Sagan live?

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