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Carl Sagan Quotes

Scientist

Carl Sagan was a renowned astrophysicist, cosmologist, and science communicator whose work sparked curiosity and wonder about the universe. Known for his ability to make complex scientific ideas accessible, his words often reflect a deep sense of awe for the cosmos and the importance of critical thinking and exploration. The following quotes capture his vision of science, humanity’s place in the universe, and the endless possibilities for discovery.

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I don't want to believe. I want to know.
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Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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Your religion assumes that people are children and need a boogeyman so they'll behave. You want people to believe in God so they'll obey the law. That's the only means that occurs to you: a strict secular police force, and the threat of punishment by an all-seeing God for whatever the police overlook. You sell human beings short.
From Contact
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If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?
From The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
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The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.
From Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
From Cosmos
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The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. 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.
From Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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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.
From Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
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I do not think it irresponsible to portray even the direst futures if we are to avoid them we must understand that they are possible. But where are the alternatives Where are the dreams that motivate and inspire We long for realistic maps of a world we can be proud to give to our children. Where are the cartographers of human purpose Where are the visions of hopeful futures of technology as a tool for human betterment and not a gun on hair trigger pointed at our heads
From Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested in whether there’s any sober evidence for it.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
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The fossil record implies trial and error, the inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with a Great Designer (though not a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament.)
From Cosmos
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Their position seems to be that their God is so great he doesn't even have to exist.
From Contact
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A new concept of god: “something not very different from the sum total of the physical laws of the universe; that is, gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field theories plus a few other things equaled god. And by that all they meant was that here were a set of exquisitely powerful physical principles that seemed to explain a great deal that was otherwise inexplicable about the universe. Laws of nature…that apply not just locally, not just in Glasgow, but far beyond: Edinburgh, Moscow…Mars…the center of the Milky Way, and out by the most distant quarters known. That the same laws of physics apply everywhere is quite remarkable. Certainly that represents a power greater than any of us.
From The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
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The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.
From Cosmos
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For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
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In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
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Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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Our God Is Alive and Well. Sorry About Yours.
From Contact
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Any faith that admires truth, that strives to know God, must be brave enough to accommodate the universe.
From Contact
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That writing as careless as Däniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of Däniken.
From The Space-Gods Revealed: A Close Look at the Theories of Erich von Däniken
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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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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
La prueba de ausencia no es prueba de ausencia
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't want to believe. I want to know.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Your religion assumes that people are children and need a boogeyman so they'll behave. You want people to believe in God so they'll obey the law. That's the only means that occurs to you: a strict secular police force, and the threat of punishment by an all-seeing God for whatever the police overlook. You sell human beings short.
From Contact
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?
From The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.
From Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
From Cosmos
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. 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.
From Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
From Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I do not think it irresponsible to portray even the direst futures if we are to avoid them we must understand that they are possible. But where are the alternatives Where are the dreams that motivate and inspire We long for realistic maps of a world we can be proud to give to our children. Where are the cartographers of human purpose Where are the visions of hopeful futures of technology as a tool for human betterment and not a gun on hair trigger pointed at our heads
From Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested in whether there’s any sober evidence for it.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The fossil record implies trial and error, the inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with a Great Designer (though not a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament.)
From Cosmos
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Their position seems to be that their God is so great he doesn't even have to exist.
From Contact
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
A new concept of god: “something not very different from the sum total of the physical laws of the universe; that is, gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field theories plus a few other things equaled god. And by that all they meant was that here were a set of exquisitely powerful physical principles that seemed to explain a great deal that was otherwise inexplicable about the universe. Laws of nature…that apply not just locally, not just in Glasgow, but far beyond: Edinburgh, Moscow…Mars…the center of the Milky Way, and out by the most distant quarters known. That the same laws of physics apply everywhere is quite remarkable. Certainly that represents a power greater than any of us.
From The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.
From Cosmos
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Our God Is Alive and Well. Sorry About Yours.
From Contact
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Any faith that admires truth, that strives to know God, must be brave enough to accommodate the universe.
From Contact
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
That writing as careless as Däniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of Däniken.
From The Space-Gods Revealed: A Close Look at the Theories of Erich von Däniken
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
La prueba de ausencia no es prueba de ausencia
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I don't want to believe. I want to know.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Your religion assumes that people are children and need a boogeyman so they'll behave. You want people to believe in God so they'll obey the law. That's the only means that occurs to you: a strict secular police force, and the threat of punishment by an all-seeing God for whatever the police overlook. You sell human beings short.
From Contact
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?
From The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.
From Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
From Cosmos
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. 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.
From Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
From Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
I do not think it irresponsible to portray even the direst futures if we are to avoid them we must understand that they are possible. But where are the alternatives Where are the dreams that motivate and inspire We long for realistic maps of a world we can be proud to give to our children. Where are the cartographers of human purpose Where are the visions of hopeful futures of technology as a tool for human betterment and not a gun on hair trigger pointed at our heads
From Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death. And it’s not the least bit interested in whether there’s any sober evidence for it.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The fossil record implies trial and error, the inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with a Great Designer (though not a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament.)
From Cosmos
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Their position seems to be that their God is so great he doesn't even have to exist.
From Contact
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
A new concept of god: “something not very different from the sum total of the physical laws of the universe; that is, gravitation plus quantum mechanics plus grand unified field theories plus a few other things equaled god. And by that all they meant was that here were a set of exquisitely powerful physical principles that seemed to explain a great deal that was otherwise inexplicable about the universe. Laws of nature…that apply not just locally, not just in Glasgow, but far beyond: Edinburgh, Moscow…Mars…the center of the Milky Way, and out by the most distant quarters known. That the same laws of physics apply everywhere is quite remarkable. Certainly that represents a power greater than any of us.
From The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.
From Cosmos
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Our God Is Alive and Well. Sorry About Yours.
From Contact
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
Any faith that admires truth, that strives to know God, must be brave enough to accommodate the universe.
From Contact
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
That writing as careless as Däniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of Däniken.
From The Space-Gods Revealed: A Close Look at the Theories of Erich von Däniken
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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.
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
From The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
La prueba de ausencia no es prueba de ausencia
Avg Rating: --Rate This Quote
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