Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

Astronomer, Astrophysicist

Carl Sagan was an influential astronomer and science communicator, known for his work 'Cosmos' and advocacy for scientific literacy.

Science Stars Thinking Atheist Cosmos Children
Born
November 9, 1934
Died
December 20, 1996
Quotes
592
Rank
#212

Quote collection

Carl Sagan quotes (page 24 of 30)

592 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"We've tended in our cosmologies to make things familiar. Despite all our best efforts, we've not been very inventive. In the West, Heaven is placid and fluffy, and Hell is like the inside of a volcano. In many stories, both realms are governed by dominance hierarchies headed by gods or devils. Monotheists talked about the king of kings. In every culture we imagined something like our own political system running the Universe. Few found the similarity suspicious."

Running Kings Volcanoes
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?"

Smart Doe Murder
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts (as well as unable to take such a course of action) if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. On the other hand, if such a traditional god does not exist, our curiosity and our intelligence are the essential tools for managing our survival. In either case, the enterprise of knowledge is consistent with both science and religion, and is essential for the welfare of the human species."

Passion Hands Survival
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"Except for children (who don't know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spendtime wondering why nature is the way it is . . ."

Nature Children Important
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"Nature does not always conform to our predispositions and preferences, to what we deem comfortable and easy to understand."

Doe Easy Preference
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything."

Simple Self Perfect
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"The uniqueness of humans has been claimed on many grounds, but most often because of our tool-making, culture, language, reason and morality. We have them, the other animals don't, and -- so the argument goes -- that's that."

Animal Culture Tools
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"When you buy a used car, you kick the tires, you look at the odometer, you open up the hood. If you do not feel yourself an expert in automobile engines, you bring a friend who is. And you do this with something as unimportant as an automobile. But on the issues of the transcendent, of ethics, of morals, of the origins of the world, of the nature of human beings, on those issues should we not insist upon at least equally skeptical scrutiny?"

Issues Car World
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"We can always take but never give."

Giving
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Its goal is to find out how the world works, to seek what regularities there may be, to penetrate to the connections of things-from subatomic particles, which may be the constituents of all matter, to living organisms, the human social community, and thence to the cosmos as a whole."

Science Thinking Goal
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"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."

Children Mean Survival
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"By looking far out into space we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe, back toward the epoch of the Big Bang."

Space Bangs Horizon
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"It seems madness to say, 'We're worried that they're going to become addicted to marijuana' -- there's no evidence whatever that it's an addictive drug, but even if it were, these people are dying, what are we saving them from?"

Marijuana People Drug
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning."

Numbers Logical Simplest
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"Books tap the wisdom of our species -- the greatest minds, the best teachers -- from all over the world and from all our history. And they're patient."

Teacher Book Mind
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us."

Emotional Courageous Exploration
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Carl Sagan Astronomer, Astrophysicist
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"All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95% of Americans are "scientifically illiterate." That's...the same fraction...of slaves who were illiterate before the Civil War."

War Smart Passion
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