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Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Carl Sagan (American Astronomer)

Inspirational Quotations by Carl Sagan (American Astronomer)

Carl Edward Sagan (1934–96) was an American astronomer and author of numerous books of popular science.

Born in New York City, Sagan studied at universities of Chicago and Berkeley, worked at Harvard then moved to Cornell, becoming a professor of astronomy and space science in 1970. He studied the surfaces and the atmospheres of the major planets, conducted experiments on the origins of life on earth, and argued about the environmental consequences of nuclear war.

Sagan was controversial in scientific, political, and religious circles for his views on extraterrestrial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and religion. He wrote several popular books explaining developments in astronomy, biology, and psychology. His notable works include Cosmic Connection (1973,) The Dragons of Eden (1977; Pulitzer,) and Broca’s Brain (1979.)

Sagan was president of the Planetary Society 1979–96 and a strong proponent of SeTI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Contact (1985,) Sagan’s novel about the search for alien life, was made into a popular 1997 film.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Carl Sagan

The fact that so little of the findings of modern science is prefigured in Scripture to my mind casts further doubt on its divine inspiration.
—Carl Sagan

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Science, Knowledge, Thinking

We are at a crossroads in human history. Never before has there been a moment so simultaneously perilous and promising. We are the first species to have taken evolution into our own hands.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Sin, History

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Illusion

There is today-in a time when old beliefs are withering-a kind of philosophical hunger, a need to know who we are and how we got here. It is an on-going search, often unconscious, for a cosmic perspective for humanity.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Philosophers, Philosophy

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Superstition

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.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Space

We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Loyalty, Man, Mankind

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Creation, Create, Universe, Perspective

In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist’s signature.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: The Artist

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.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Evolution

It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Science

If the world is to be understood, if we are to avoid such logical paradoxes when traveling at high speeds, there are some rules, commandments of Nature, that must be obeyed. Einstein codified these rules in the special theory of relativity. Light (reflected or emitted) from an object travels at the same velocity whether the object is moving or stationary: Thou shalt not add thy speed to the speed of light. Also, no material object may move faster than light: Thou shalt not travel at or beyond the speed of light. Nothing in physics prevents you from traveling as close to the speed of light as you like; 99.9 percent of the speed of light would be just fine. But no matter how hard you try, you can never gain that last decimal point. For the world to be logically consistent there must be a cosmic speed limit. Otherwise, you could get to any speed you wanted by adding velocities on a moving platform.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Light

If we like them, they’re freedom fighters … If we don’t like them, they’re terrorists. In the unlikely case we can’t make up our minds, they’re temporarily only guerrillas.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Terrorism

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Science, One liners, Universe, Curiosity, Mystery

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Absence

A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Reading

If the dinosaurs had had a space program, they would not be extinct.
—Carl Sagan

Except for children (who don’t know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spend time wondering why nature is the way it is.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Nature

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Universe

I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Curiosity

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Technology

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Science

Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us – and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Truth

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Imagination

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
Topics: Laughter, Genius

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Ambition

Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: The Universe

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.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Religion

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: The Universe

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