Quotes from Dr. Carl Sagan

Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgment, the manner in which information is collected and used

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

... 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.

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 the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.

We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow biological evolution. There is no reason to think that the evolutionary process has stopped. Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation.