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Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan Quotes

Astronomer

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Famous Carl Sagan Quotes

“There is a wide yawning black infinity. In every direction the extension is endless, the sensation of depth is overwhelming. And the darkness is immortal. Where light exists, it is pure, blazing, fierce; but light exists almost nowhere, and the blackness itself is also pure and blazing and fierce. But most of all, there is very nearly nothing in the dark; except for little bits here and there, often associated with the light, this infinite receptacle is empty. This picture is strangely frightening. It should be familiar. It is our universe. Even these stars, which seem so numerous, are, as sand, as dust, or less than dust, in the enormity of the space in which there is nothing. Nothing! We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s Pensées and read, 'I am the great silent spaces between worlds.' [From an undated, handwritten piece of text from the early 1950s which Sagan wrote when he was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago]”

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Author:Carl Sagan
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“We've begun at last to wonder about our origins, star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and perhaps throughout the cosmos. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.”

LongMatterEarthLastsStarsStuffConsciousnessWonderPathPlanetsEvolutionTenSpringAncientBillionsObligationOrganizedCollectionsCosmosAtomsContemplatingPlanet EarthTracing
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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“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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“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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“We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering.”

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Author:Carl Sagan
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“Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we devised artificial lights and atmospheric pollution and modern forms of nocturnal entertainment we watched the stars. There were practical calendar reasons of course but there was more to it than that. Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away.”

YearsStillsReasonLightHappensTodayFormNightCoursesStarsCitiesClearSkyModernCivilizationBreathsMovedEntertainmentAstronomyPracticalsAncestorArtificialPollutionCalendarsNight SkyJadedDwellersTwinklingNocturnalArtificial LightTwinkling Stars
Author:Carl Sagan
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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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“National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.”

LittlesLightEarthScienceStarsDifficultReligiousSpaceViewsPlanetsBlueBoundariesFragileEvidentOur PlanetFadingChauvinismCitadelsCrescentPoints Of Light
Author:Carl Sagan
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“For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. ... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that.”

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Author:Carl Sagan
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“We can make a similar examination, but with greater uncertainty, of the extraterrestrial hypothesis that holds that a wide range of UFOs viewed on the planet Earth are space vehicles from planets of other stars.”

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Book:Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective
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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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“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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