Home / Quotes / Quote by Carl Sagan

Quote by Carl Sagan

“All of us cherish our beliefs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficiently well-based - or who, like Socrates, merely asks embarrassing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug - it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault.”

Quote by Carl Sagan

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

Work

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

In this seminal work, the author delves into the principles of scientific inquiry, critical analysis, and evidence-based reasoning. The book serves as a guide to discerning fact from fiction, advocating for the importance of skepticism and rationality in understanding the natural world. more

Author

Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, cosmologist, author, and science communicator, born on November 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. He is renowned for his profound research into the cosmos and his dedication to popularizing science. Sagan proposed numerous theories about the origin of the universe and life, and he made complex scientific knowledge accessible to the public with his unique perspective and clear, engaging writing style. more

You May Also Like

“If you give the government the right to determine the consumption of the human body, to determine whether one should smoke or not smoke, drink or not drink, there is no good reply you can give to people who say, More important than the body is the mind and the soul, and man hurts himself much more by reading bad books, by listening to bad music and looking at bad movies. Therefore it is the duty of the government to prevent people from committing those faults. And, as you know, for many hundreds of years governments and authorities velieved that it was their duty.”

Source: Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow

“We are all potentially such sick men. The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison-inmates. And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the vanity of our voluntary career comes over us, that all our morality appears but as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as the hollowest substitute for that well-being that our lives ought to be grounded in, but alas! are not.”

Men Life Feels Wells Careers Our Lives Ought Morality Sick Prison Cures Vanity Well Being Substitutes Hiding Grounded Alas Clay Inmates Plasters Sick Man

Author:William James

“Piety and morality are but the same spirit differently manifested. Piety is religion with its face toward God; morality is religion with its face toward the world.”

World Faces Spirit Religion Morality Piety

Author:Tryon Edwards

“The founders of this nation understood that private morality is the fount from whence sound public policy springs. Replying to Washington's first inaugural address, the Senate stated: "We feel, sir, the force and acknowledge the justness of the observation that the foundation of our national policy should be lain in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles it is in vain to look for public virtue."”

“Humans suffer from self-centred notions as to the nature of life. Humans assume that alien life forms should conform to standards that match our own, including logic and morality. Even among humans, morality is ignored when expedient. Why should we expect more from an alien life form than we demand from ourselves?”

Life Should Humans Self Form Suffering Nature Morality Demand Standards Logic Assuming Notion Including Aliens Assumption Ignored Conform Alien Life

Author:Steve Perry

“Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.”

Religion Left Half Fire Morality Draws Resolution Coward Crowns Triggers Scoundrels Charging Against Religion Scotsmen

Author:Samuel Johnson

“Atheistic morality is not impossible, but it will never answer our purpose.”

Purpose Answers Impossible Atheism Morality Atheistic

Author:Roswell Dwight Hitchcock

“The dilemma of our age is the combination of unprecedented material progress and systematic spiritual decline. The decline in public and private morality can be witnessed in the marketplace as well as the forums of international diplomacy. In the past, a man's honor and reputation were his most valuable assets. Business agreements were made with a handshake. Today one might be well advised to check the "bottom line" and read the "small print."”

“There are many religions, but there is only one morality.”

Religion Morality

Book:Sesame and Lilies. Three Lectures

Source: Sesame and Lilies. Three Lectures

“In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.”

Light Knowledge Virtue Mines Morality Regard Historical Revelations Invaluable

Book:Letters of John Quincy Adams, to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings

Source: Letters of John Quincy Adams, to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings