Quotes About Carl Sagan

Lost somewhere between the eternity of time and immensity of space is our tiny planetary home

This new project of hers was in experimental theology. But so is all of science she thought.

In the littered field of discredited self-congratulatory chauvinisms, there is only one that seems to hold up, one sense in which we are special: Due to our own actions or inactions, and the misuse of our technology, we live at an extraordinary moment, for the Earth at least—the first time that a species has become able to wipe itself out.

It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised.

Experiences which are out of line with the teachings of Scripture must always be renounced as fallacious. The Bible has a monopoly on the truth.

It is a characteristic conceit of our species to put a human face on random cosmic violence.

Many harebrained interpretations were also widely available, especially in weekly newspapers.

It is therefore impossible that reason not previously instructed should imagine anything other than that the Earth is a kind of vast house with the vault of the sky placed on top of it;

In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch with Annie

Los demonios venden; los bromistas son aburridos y de mal gusto.

Science may have evicted ghosts and witches from our beliefs

I'm frequently asked, "Do you believe there's extraterrestrial intelligence?" I give the standard arguments—there are a lot of places out there, the molecules of life are everywhere, I use the word billions, and so on.

We all have a tendency to succumb to a state of despair about the destructiveness and shortsightedness of the human species. I've certainly done my share (and on grounds I still consider well-based). But one of the discoveries of my illness is the extraordinary community of goodness to which people in my situation owe their lives.

Do you believe in UFOs?" I'm always struck by how the question is phrased, the suggestion that this is a matter of belief and not of evidence. I'm almost never asked, "How good is the evidence that UFOs are alien spaceships?" I

democracy can also be subverted more thoroughly through the products of science than any pre-industrial demagogue ever dreamed.

The quantity of 200-proof alcohol in this single interstellar cloud was more than enough to maintain the present population of the Earth, if every adult were a dedicated alcoholic, for the age of the solar system.

But if the Cosmos is closed and light cannot escape from it, then it may be perfectly correct to deceive the universe as a black hole. If you wish to know what it is like inside a black hole, look around you.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Perhaps the locale of the subjunctive mood will one day be found. Will Latins turn out to be extravagantly endowed and English-speaking peoples significantly short-changed in this minor piece of brain anatomy?

Geometry existed before the Creation. It is co-eternal with the mind of God... Geometry provided God with a model for the creatin... Geometry is God Himself. Johannes Kepler

In the 1970s, we had Carl Sagan, and he was so suave with his turtleneck and his tweed jacket. And he was, you know, he made science look cool. And in punk rock, we haven't had that. We haven't had the Carl Sagan of punk.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

Keeping an open mind is a virtue," Carl Sagan wrote in The Demon-Haunted World, the last book he published, but "not so open that your brains fall out…. I have a foreboding of an America when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness." That was twenty years ago.

The disturbing truth about science communication is that we have theories and ways of delivering messages that really are like putting a candle to the dark, as Carl Sagan would say. We aren't sure what will work, when, or how much. But for all that uncertainty, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.