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Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan Quotes

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Famous Carl Sagan Quotes

“The claim is also sometimes made that science is as arbitrary or irrational as all other claims to knowledge, or that reason itself is an illusion. As Ethan Allen said Those who invalidate reason ought seriously to consider whether they argue against reason with or without reason; if with reason, then they establish the principle that they are labouring to dethrone. If they argue without reason, which they must do, in order to be consistent with themselves, they are out of reach of rational conviction, nor do they deserve a rational argument.”

IfsMadeSaidSometimesReasonScienceOrderPrinciplesOughtIllusionDeserveArgumentClaimsConvictionArguingRationalConsistentIrrationalArbitrary
Author:Carl Sagan
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“All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star stuff.”

YearsMadeStarsStuffBloodMaterialsRedYears AgoBillionsTeethGiantsIronGenesCarbonInteriorsMetallicCalcium
Book:Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective
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“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”

PeopleInspirationalWritingYearsHumansPersonsMadeStillsBookFunnyTogetherReadingVoiceDarkBreakMagicTreeCitizensProofInventionFlatsGlancesFlexibleBindingShacklesAssemblageHuman Inventions
Book:Cosmos
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“Coal, oil and gas are called fossil fuels, because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives. - Dr. Carl Sagan”

YearsFirstsHumansKindLongMadeBodyRunningEarthEnergyMillionsCivilizationSceneCreaturesRemainsPlantAncientHumbleOilBurningFuelGasChemicalsAncestorSunlightLong AgoDrsConservationCultCoalFossilsFossil FuelGhastlyCannibalOil And GasBurning Fossil FuelsSagan
Book:Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
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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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“Many statements about God are confidently made by theologians on grounds that today at least sound specious. Thomas Aquinas claimed to prove that God cannot make another God, or commit suicide, or make a man without a soul, or even make a triangle whose interior angles do not equal 180 degrees. But Bolyai and Lobachevsky were able to accomplish this last feat (on a curved surface) in the nineteenth century, and they were not even approximately gods.”

MenMadeSoulTodayAbleLastsReligionSoundCenturyProveEqualDegreesSuicideAtheistAccomplishSurfaceStatementsCommitAngleInteriorsTheologianNineteenth CenturyFeatsTriangles
Author:Carl Sagan
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“Is it fair to be suspicious of an entire profession because of a few bad apples? There are at least two important differences, it seems to me. First, no one doubts that science actually works, whatever mistaken and fraudulent claim may from time to time be offered. But whether there are any miraculous cures from faith-healing, beyond the body's own ability to cure itself, is very much at issue. Secondly, the expose' of fraud and error in science is made almost exclusively by science. But the exposure of fraud and error in faith-healing is almost never done by other faith-healers.”

FirstsMayMadeTwoImportantDoneBodySeemsReligionDifferencesAbilityHealingIssuesDoubtFairsClaimsErrorsAtheistProfessionCuresApplesFraudMistakenExposureMiraculousSuspiciousHealerBad AppleFaith Healing
Author:Carl Sagan
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“There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.”

MadeScienceFoundInterestingHonorFindingsHighestAccountsFundamentalsStructureRewardsContributionImperfectionVery InterestingNewtonIsaac
Author:Carl Sagan
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“As agonizing a disease as cancer is, I do not think it can be said that our civilization is threatened by it. ... But a very plausible case can be made that our civilization is fundamentally threatened by the lack of adequate fertility control. Exponential increases of population will dominate any arithmetic increases, even those brought about by heroic technological initiatives, in the availability of food and resources, as Malthus long ago realized.”

ThinkingLongMadeSaidScienceCasesCivilizationDiseaseResourcesIncreasePopulationCancerRealizationHeroicInitiativeLong AgoTechnologicalThreatenedAdequateArithmeticPlausibleFertilityAvailabilityAgonizingMalthus
Author:Carl Sagan
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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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“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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“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.”

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Author:Carl Sagan
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“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together. Information distilled over 4 billion years of biological evolution. Incidentally, all the organisms on the Earth are made essentially of that stuff. An eyedropper full of that liquid could be used to make a caterpillar or a petunia if only we knew how to put the components together.”

IfsWayYearsMadeEarthTogetherUsedStuffInformationEvolutionBillionsAtomsOrganismsComponentsLiving ThingsLiquidCaterpillarsPetuniasBiological Evolution
Author:Carl Sagan
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