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Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan Quotes

Astronomer

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Famous Carl Sagan Quotes

“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.”

ThinkingMenYearsReasonProcessAnimalCreationProductsEvolutionBillionsNo ReasonClimaxFortuitousBiological Evolution
Book:Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective
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“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. ... Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

YearsMindHumansPersonsMadeBookDarkBreakMagicTreeObjectsCapableProofCosmosFlatsGlancesFlexibleAstonishingShackles
Author:Carl Sagan
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“If we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and superstition - even when it seems to be doing a little good - we abet a general climate in which scepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate.”

IfsThinkingLittlesSeemsToo MuchOffersSilentClimateMysticismSuperstitionsInappropriateTiresomeScepticismAbet
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

KindSoundCommonMediaIgnoranceProgrammingSecondsBitesCelebrationSuperstitionsDecayEvidentLowestPresentationInfluentialCommon DenominatorPseudoscienceSound BitesLowest Common DenominatorDumbing Down
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“We are rare and precious because we are alive, because we can think as well as we can. We are privileged to influence and perhaps control our future. I believe we have an obligation to fight for life on Earth - not just for ourselves, but for all those, humans and others, who came before us, and to whom we are beholden, and for all those who, if we are wise enough, will come after.”

IfsThinkingBelieveHumansWellsEnoughEarthFightingI BelieveWiseAliveInfluenceObligationOur FuturePrivileged
Book:Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
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“We seem, these days, much more willing to recognize the perils before us than we were even a decade ago. The newly recognized dangers threaten all of us, equally. No one can say how it will turn out down here. But this is also, we may note, the first time that a species has become able to journey to the planets and the stars. Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense a stirring of the breeze.”

FirstsMaySeemsAbleTurnsStarsJourneySeaDangerWillingPlanetsFirst TimeNotesSpeciesDecadesThese DaysBreezePerilSailorStirring
Author:Carl Sagan
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“Centuries hence, when current social and political problems may seem as remote as the problems of the Thirty Years' War are to us, our age may be remembered chiefly for one fact: It was the time when the inhabitants of the earth first made contact with the vast cosmos in which their small planet is embedded.”

YearsFirstsMayMadeWarFactsProblemSeemsAgeEarthPoliticalSocialSpaceCenturyPlanetsCurrentsContactRememberedThirtyCosmosThirty YearsEmbeddedStar Gazing
Author:Carl Sagan
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“Imagine we could accelerate continuously at 1 g-what we're comfortable with on good old terra firma-to the midpoint of our voyage, and decelerate continuously at 1 g until we arrive at our destination. It would take a day to get to Mars, a week and a half to Pluto, a year to the Oort Cloud, and a few years to the nearest stars.”

YearsStarsSpaceHalfImagineWeekComfortableCloudsDestinationMarsVoyagesStar GazingAcceleratePluto
Book:Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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“I never said it. Honest. Oh, I said there are maybe 100 billion galaxies and 10 billion trillion stars. It's hard to talk about the Cosmos without using big numbers. I said "billion" many times on the Cosmos television series, which was seen by a great many people. But I never said "billions and billions." For one thing, it's too imprecise. How many billions are "billions and billions"? A few billion? Twenty billion? A hundred billion? "Billions and billions" is pretty vague. When we reconfigured and updated the series, I checked-and sure enough, I never said it.”

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Author:Carl Sagan
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“The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience..... 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.”

WorldHas BeensSaidMomentsCharacterHomeEarthDealsResponsibilityKnownBuildingBlueSpeciesAstronomyPreservesSettlingCosmosCherishPaleHarborsCharacter BuildingDotsHumblingVastnessPale Blue DotMigrateAstronomy And Universe
Book:Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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