Quotessence
Home / Authors / Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan Quotes

Astronomer

Filter quotes by topic

AllScienceUniverseIfsCosmosHumansReligionEarthWorldStarsThinkingPale Blue DotKnowsSkepticismWayAtheistSpacePlanetsEvidenceMayMade

Famous Carl Sagan Quotes

“The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can't all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It's a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I'm not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they're called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation.”

InspirationTruthEarthScienceReligionContradictionWrongSkepticismBeliefsIdeaRevelationReligionsScepticismHypotheses
Book:Contact
Create image

“The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature. 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.”

TruthScienceNatureImaginationBeachCosmosShoreSkepticismAwesome
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image

“It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes, whichever one it is, you’re in deep trouble. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, maybe once in a hundred cases, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones.”

IdeasBalanceOpennessSkepticismCritical Thinking
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image

“The UFO abduction syndrom portrays, it seems to me, a banal Universe. The form of the supposed aliens is marked by a failure of the imagination and a preoccupation with human concerns. Not a single being presented in all these accounts is as astonishing as a cockatoo would be if you had never before beheld a bird.”

FaithPsychologyAliensSkepticismLovecraftUfos
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.”

ScienceReligionSkepticism
Book:Cosmos
Create image

“That writing as careless as Däniken's, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of Däniken.”

ScienceReligionHistorySkepticism
Book:The Space-Gods Revealed: A Close Look at the Theories of Erich von Däniken
Create image

“deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.”

ScienceCultureIgnoranceCriticismDelusionSkepticismSuperstitionCredulityPseudoscienceSkeptics
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“Occasionally, I get a letter from someone who is in “contact” with extraterrestrials. I am invited to “ask them anything.” And so over the years I’ve prepared a little list of questions. The extraterrestrials are very advanced, remember. So I ask things like, “Please provide a short proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem.” Or the Goldbach Conjecture. And then I have to explain what these are, because extraterrestrials will not call it Fermat’s Last Theorem. So I write out the simple equation with the exponents. I never get an answer. On the other hand, if I ask something like “Should we be good?” I almost always get an answer.”

AliensSkepticismExtraterrestrialsUfosFermat S Last TheoremGoldbach Conjecture
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“Why does Alexander the Great never tell us about the exact location of his tomb, Fermat about his Last Theorem, John Wilkes Booth about the Lincoln assassination conspiracy, Hermann Göring about the Reichstag fire? Why don’t Sophocles, Democritus, and Aristarchus dictate their lost books?”

EvidenceSkepticismPseudoscienceSophoclesAlexander The GreatJohn Wilkes BoothDemocritusFermat S Last TheoremAristarchusChannelersHermann GöringReichstag Fire
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“Some information is classified legitimately; as with military hardware, secrecy sometimes really is in the national interest. Further, military, political, and intelligence communities tend to value secrecy for its own sake. It's a way of silencing critics and evading responsibility - for incompetence or worse. It generates an elite, a band of brothers in whom the national confidence can be reliably vested, unlike the great mass of citizenry on whose behalf the information is presumably made secret in the first place. With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science.”

GovernmentScienceSkepticismRationality
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image

“Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No, no scientist enjoys it. Every scientist feels a proprietary affection for his or her ideas and findings. Even so, you don’t reply to critics, Wait a minute; this is a really good idea; I’m very fond of it; it’s done you no harm; please leave it alone. Instead, the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don’t work, you must throw them away.”

ScienceResearchCriticismSkepticismScientific MethodSaganPeer Review
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“Another of Mack’s patients says that the aliens have been taking eggs from her since she was sexually mature, and that her reproductive system baffles her gynecologist. Is it baffling enough to write the case up and submit a research paper to The New England Journal of Medicine? Apparently it’s not that baffling.”

ScienceResearchEvidenceSkepticismExtraterrestrialsAlien AbductionJournal Of Medicine
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“X "La ciencia es más que un cuerpo de conocimiento, es una manera de pensar. Tengo un presagio de la época de mis hijos o mis nietos, cuando Estados Unidos sea una economía de servicios e información; cuando casi todas las principales industrias manufactureras se hayan ido a otros países; cuando los increíbles poderes tecnológicos estén en manos de muy pocos, y nadie que represente el interés público pueda siquiera comprender los problemas; cuando la gente haya perdido la capacidad de establecer sus propias agendas o cuestionar sabiamente a los que tienen autoridad; cuando, abrazados a nuestras bolas de cristal y consultando nerviosamente nuestros horóscopos, con nuestras facultades críticas en declive, incapaces de distinguir entre lo que se siente bien y lo que es verdad, nos deslicemos de vuelta, casi sin darnos cuenta, en la superstición y la oscuridad. La caída en la estupidez de Norteamérica se hace evidente principalmente en la lenta decadencia del contenido de los medios de comunicación, de enorme influencia, las cuñas de sonido de treinta segundos (ahora reducidas a diez o menos), la programación de nivel ínfimo, las crédulas presentaciones de pseudociencia y superstición, pero sobre todo en una especie de celebración de la ignorancia.”

ScienceEducationSkepticismCritical ThinkingSuperstitionRationalismPseudoscienceAnti IntellectualismTechnocracy
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“La ciencia es más que un cuerpo de conocimiento, es una manera de pensar. Tengo un presagio de la época de mis hijos o mis nietos, cuando Estados Unidos sea una economía de servicios e información; cuando casi todas las principales industrias manufactureras se hayan ido a otros países; cuando los increíbles poderes tecnológicos estén en manos de muy pocos, y nadie que represente el interés público pueda si quiera comprender los problemas; cuando la gente haya perdido la capacidad de establecer sus propias agendas o cuestionar sabiamente a los que tienen autoridad; cuando, abrazados a nuestras bolas de cristal y consultando nerviosamente nuestros horóscopos, con nuestras facultades críticas en declive, incapaces de distinguir entre lo que se siente bien y lo que es verdad, nos deslicemos de vuelta, casi sin darnos cuenta, en la superstición y la oscuridad. La caída en la estupidez de Norteamérica se hace evidente principalmente en la lenta decadencia del contenido de los medios de comunicación, de enorme influencia, las cuñas de sonido de treinta segundos (ahora reducidas a diez o menos), la programación de nivel ínfimo, las crédulas presentaciones de pseudociencia y superstición, pero sobre todo en una especie de celebración de la ignorancia.”

ScienceEducationSkepticismCritical ThinkingSuperstitionRationalismPseudoscienceAnti IntellectualismTechnocracy
Book:The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“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
Create image

“...the idea of a spiritual part of our nature that survives death, the notion of an afterlife, ought to be easy for religions and nations to sell. This is not an issue of which we might anticipate widespread skepticism. People will want to believe it, even if the evidence is meager to nil... compelling testimony ... provides that our personality, character, memory ... resides in the matter of the brain, it is easy not to focus on it, to find ways to evade the weight of the evidence.”

PeopleIfsWayWantBelieveIdeasMatterCharacterMightSpiritualNationsEasyMemoriesBrainIssuesFocusPersonalityOughtEvidenceWeightSellsNotionAfterlifeCompellingSkepticismTestimonyAnticipate
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image

“I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience.”

FeelsFirstsBelieveChildrenLittlesFeelingsHappensSchoolI BelievePoorPowerfulEmotionWonderTeachMediaEncouragementThings HappenAcknowledgeGradesClassroomSkepticismThirstVery PowerfulNicheEcologicalStirringPubertySense Of WonderPseudosciencePowerful Emotions
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image

“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

ScienceDeathReligionUniverseStuffAtheismDyingHumorousAtheistWittyThriveCosmosDelusionSatisfyingSkepticismPersistAgnosticSkepticalSkepticCosmologyThere Is No GodAgnosticismAtheisticFreethinkerReassuringIf There Is A GodPseudoscienceFamous MotivationalThere Being No GodChristian AtheistAnti ReligionAnti AtheistAnti GodSubtle AtheistAstronomy And UniverseSmall CreaturesSatisfying Work
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“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
Create image

“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”

LifeInspirationalMindHumansLooksBookTruthScienceReligionUniverseHuman BeingsAcceptingTeachHumilityInvolvedScientistHumbleSkepticismOpen MindLiteralFallibilityPale Blue DotHumble Man
Book:Conversations with Carl Sagan
Create image

“Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.”

WorldHumansScienceUniverseWishHuman BeingsWonderKnowledgeMysteryComfortAspectPrejudiceStructureAweCosmosSuperstitionsSkepticismFleetingPenetrateSense Of WonderPale Blue Dot
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image

“Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of education is trivial compared to the cost of ignorance, of leaving government to the wolves. He taught that the country is safe only when the people rule.”

PeopleCountryGovernmentIgnoranceTaughtHabitCostSafeEssentialsResponsibleLeavingSkepticismNeverthelessCitizenshipPrerequisitesCost Of Education
Book:Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Create image

“If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.”

IfsThinkingWorldShouldHumansMayChildrenCountryReasonHandsFormScienceSpiritCertainCommunityOpinionDarknessVirtueRightsTeachingHumilityCitizensAuthorityOur ChildrenMethodBillsPositive AtheismEducatedDemonSkepticismBeing HumanDecencyUnwillingBill Of RightsScientific MethodCommunity Spirit
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image

“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
Create image

“If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress.”

IfsWorldWayPersonsIdeasScienceTurnsCoursesUnderstandingSupportToo MuchProgressWonderfulMissingHabitStandingMarkConvincedDataNonsenseNow And ThenSkepticismNew IdeasRulingSkepticalResentSkepticSupport YouOld PersonRuling The World
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image

“Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism-especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested-and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.”

NeedsIdeasScienceAcceptingKnowledgeKnowingToo MuchAcceptanceNotionRejectionOpennessSkepticismNew IdeasTestedHypothesisGrumpyKnowing Nothing
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image

“A proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places, and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright. When, through indifference, inattention, incompetence, or fear of skepticism, we discourage children from science, we are disenfranchisin g them, taking from them the tools needed to manage their future.”

MeanChildrenHas BeensCultureNeededSurvivalToolsManageAll TimeIndifferenceSkepticismDiscouragingIncompetenceEmbeddedBirthrightInattention
Author:Carl Sagan
Create image