Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes 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

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: Philosophy, Philosophers

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

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

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.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Intelligence, Understanding

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
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Intelligence, Judgement

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.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Books

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

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

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

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

One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Criticism

When you make the finding yourself – even if you’re the last person on Earth to see the light – you’ll never forget it.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Discovery

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

We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. 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.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Technology

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

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

Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Emotions

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

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

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

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

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
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Arguments

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
Topics: Books

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

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

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

Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Medicine

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

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

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