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Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan Quotes

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Famous Carl Sagan Quotes

“Religions contradict one another-on small matters, such as whether we should put on a hat or take one off on entering a house of worship, or whether we should eat beef and eschew pork or the other way around, all the way to the most central issues, such as whether there are no gods, one God, or many gods.”

WayShouldMatterReligionHouseReligiousIssuesWorshipHatsEnteringBeefPorkHouses Of Worship
Book:Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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“The Apollo pictures of the whole Earth conveyed to multitudes something well known to astronomers: On the scale of the worlds - to say nothing of stars or galaxies - humans are inconsequential, a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal”

WorldHumansWellsWholeEarthFilmStarsKnownRocksScalesMetalsSolitaryMultitudesObscureWell KnownGalaxyApolloLumpsAstronomersInconsequential
Book:Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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“There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything.”

HumansDoeSelfReasonEarthNaturalSimplePerfectToolsSpeciesInventionWorking ItSelectionOngoingNot PerfectNatural SelectionCorrectingCerebralMisusedHuman Inventions
Book:Cosmos
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“Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience.”

IfsDoeWould BePoorRoomsWonderUnderstoodEvidenceClaimsAcceptedAbandonSoarAdequateNicheEcologicalSense Of WonderPseudoscience
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“At a few hundred kilometers altitude, the Earth fills half your sky, and the band of blue that stretches from Mindanao to Bombay, which your eye encompasses in a single glance, can break your heart with its beauty. Home you think. Home. This is my world. This is where I come from. Everyone I know, everyone I ever heard of, grew up down there, under that relentless and exquisite blue.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldHeartHomeEyeEarthHalfBreakHeardSkyGrewBandGrew UpHundredBlueGlancesExquisiteRelentlessBreak Your HeartBombay
Book:Contact
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“Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.”

SelfAgePastPurposeChallengesSelf EsteemHabitPrejudiceFamiliarEsteemCosmosNervesCosmicFanaticismScarcityPseudoscience
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“He sought a way to preserve the past. John Hershel was one of the founders of a new form of time travel.... a means to capture light and memories. He actually coined a word for it... photography. When you think about it, photography is a form of time travel. This man is staring at us from across the centuries, a ghost preserved by light.”

ThinkingMenWayMeanLightPastFormMemoriesCenturyPhotographyGhostPreservesStaringCaptureTime TravelFounders
Author:Carl Sagan
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“The impediment to scientific thinking is not, I think, the difficulty of the subject. Complex intellectual feats have been mainstays even of oppressed cultures. Shamans, magicians and theologians are highly skilled in their intricate and arcane arts. No, the impediment is political and hierarchical.”

ThinkingHas BeensArtPoliticalCultureSubjectsIntellectualDifficultyComplexesOppressedTheologianMagicianIntricateFeatsImpedimentsArcane
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn't a real god. They didn't believe in the divinity of apotheosized emperors or Olympian gods. They had a peculiar, different kind of god. So it was very easy to call people who believed in a different kind of god atheists. And that general sense that an atheist is anybody who doesn't believe exactly as I do prevails in our own time.”

PeopleBelieveWellsKindDifferentRealChristianEasyAtheistDivinityPeculiarDifferent KindsEmperorOlympianOlympian Gods
Author:Carl Sagan
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“Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don't conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything - new ideas and established wisdom.”

ThinkingWayIdeasFactsBodyFineBalanceAlternativesUrgesOpennessInvitesNew IdeasConformHypothesisSkepticalWay Of ThinkingScrutinyPreconceptions
Author:Carl Sagan
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“Eratosthenes was the director of the great library of Alexandria, the Centre of science and learning in the ancient world. Aristotle had argued that humanity was divided into Greeks and everybody else, whom he called barbarians and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure. He thought it was fitting for the Greeks to enslave other peoples. But Erathosthenes criticized Aristotle for his blind chauvinism, he believed there was good and bad in every nation.”

WorldShouldHumanityNationsPureDirectorsBlindLibraryAncientGreekDividedCentreGood And BadFittingBarbariansChauvinismAncient WorldAlexandria
Author:Carl Sagan
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“I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars.... And the answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close. The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light.... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.”

KindLittlesBookLightUniverseLeftStarsReligiousAnswersSunScalesFar AwayLibrarianGrandeurStunningMagnificenceReligious ExperiencePoints Of Light
Author:Carl Sagan
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“Goddard represented a unique combination of visionary dedication and technological brilliance. He studied physics because he needed physics to get to Mars. In reading the notebooks of Robert Goddard, I am struck by how powerful his exploratory and scientific motivations were - and how influental speculative ideas, even erroneous ones, can be on the shaping of the future.”

IdeasMotivationReadingPowerfulNeededUniquePhysicsCombinationDedicationMarsTechnologicalBrillianceNotebookVisionaries
Book:Broca's brain: reflections on the romance of science
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“We invest far off places with a certain romance... Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game; none of them lasts for ever. Your own life, or your bands, or even your species - might be owed to a restless few, drawn by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands, and new worlds.”

WorldLongMightLastsRomanceCertainGamesRichLandBandSummerSpeciesWinterNew WorldHarvestRestlessCravingPlentiful
Book:Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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“In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."”

KnowsHappensScienceReligionChangePositionEvidenceArgumentScientistPainfulPhysicsSkepticismMistakenDnaScience And ReligionSkepticalSkepticScience And TechnologyArt And ScienceScientific MethodModern SciencePhilosophy Of ScienceNatural ScienceScience ReligionPhysical ScienceScientific TruthGreat ScienceScientific FactsScience PhysicsGod And SciencePale Blue DotScientific EvidenceGood ScienceSubtle AtheistScience LoveTheoretical PhysicsBest ScienceDiscovery In ScienceAdvances In ScienceNuclear Arms RaceInformation ScienceProgress In ScienceScientist LifeScience BooksEarth ScienceAdvancement Of ScienceFuture ScienceAtomic StructureScience FairImportance Of Science
Author:Carl Sagan
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“That kind of skeptical, questioning, "don't accept what authority tells you" attitude of science - is also nearly identical to the attitude of mind necessary for a functioning democracy. Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other.”

ThinkingMindKindValuesAttitudeAcceptingDemocracyAuthorityApproachQuestioningSkepticalIdenticalDemocracies HaveConsonants
Book:Conversations with Carl Sagan
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