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Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan Quotes

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Famous Carl Sagan Quotes

“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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“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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“In science it often happens that scientists say, '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 as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”

KnowsShouldMindHumansSometimesHappensLastsScienceReligionChangeInterestingViewsLearningHappenedPositionHumilityEvidenceArgumentScientistPainfulPhysicsHeartacheRecallsSkepticismLast TimeMistakenDnaScience 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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“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.”

ThinkingKnowsWantBelieveFeelingsRememberDiesAtheismTraditionAncientAtheistDespiteImmortalityAfterlifeWishful ThinkingFreethinkerPale Blue DotSubtle Atheist
Book:Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
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“The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system. The history of our study of our solar system shows us clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong, and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.”

KnowsMayIdeasShowsCommonStudyPathSourceFundamentalsInsightPositive AtheismAcceptedLovelyAriseMysteriousUncomfortableUnexpectedEndeavorConventionalSuppressionSolar System
Author:Carl Sagan
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“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.”

KnowsWorldWayLittlesDoeMadeSaidSometimesReasonLightRomanceSciencePassionBitsWhiteAirMysterySkyFiguresColorLittle BitResearchRedScientistBlueWaveHarmPerceiveSunsetPaleTransparentStirringWhite LightPale Blue DotWavelength
Book:Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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“The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”

KnowsWayLittlesLongMadeSeemsEarthStarsStuffWaterReturnOceanSurfaceCosmosShoreCosmicInvitingAnklesWhere We Came
Author:Carl Sagan
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“An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.”

KnowsLittlesDoeSeemsCertainUniverseCausesDealsExistenceDoubtAtheismSubjectsInspireEvidenceUltimateAtheistExtremesUncertaintyCompellingSkepticismGod ExistsExistence Of God
Author:Carl Sagan
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“A blade of grass is a commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars will know the value of a patch of green. And if a blade of grass is priceless, what is the value of a human being?”

IfsKnowsHumansWould BeEarthValuesHuman BeingsMiracleGreenGrassMarsBladesPatchesCommonplacePricelessSpace ExplorationCosmologyDescendantsBlades Of Grass
Book:Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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“'In his celebrated book, 'On Liberty', the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is "a peculiar evil." If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the "opportunity of exchanging error for truth"; and if it's wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in its "collision with error." If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that: it becomes stale, soon learned by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.'”

IfsKnowsBookTruthEvilOpportunityUnderstandingSidesLibertyOpinionArgumentErrorsPhilosopherDeeperPeculiarDeprivedMillsStaleCollisionLifelessExchangingDeeper UnderstandingSilencing
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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“We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.”

KnowsYearsFirstsMadeSelfHappensEarthChoicesUniverseNextSpaceDependsEvolutionOceanDestructionBillionsLegacyCosmosHeritageMeaninglessCosmicTime And SpaceHere And NowAwakenedSelf DestructionVastness
Author:Carl Sagan
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“In college, in the early 1950s, I began to learn a little about how science works, the secrets of its great success, how rigorous the standards of evidence must be if we are really to know something is true, how many false starts and dead ends have plagued human thinking, how our biases can colour our interpretation of evidence, and how often belief systems widely held and supported by the political, religious and academic hierarchies turn out to be not just slightly in error, but grotesquely wrong.”

IfsThinkingKnowsHumansLittlesEndsPoliticalTurnsBeliefReligiousSecretCollegeStandardsEvidenceErrorsColourInterpretationAcademicHierarchyGreat SuccessBelief SystemsDead Ends
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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