Carl Sagan Quotes
One of the greatest gifts adults can give - to their offspring and to their society - is to read to children.
The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home.
A millennium before Europeans were willing to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions.
We are made of stellar ash. Our origin and evolution have been tied to distant cosmic events. The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.
Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.
Not all birds can fly. What separates the flyers from the walkers is the ability to take off.
I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.
She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos.
Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.
Humans - who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals - have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain.
The secrets of evolution are death and time-the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations.
If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.
The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.
History is full of people who out of fear, or ignorance, or lust for power has destroyed knowledge of immeasurable value which truly belongs to us all. We must not let it happen again.
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.
Our perceptions are fallible. We sometimes see what isn't there. We are prey to optical illusions. Occasionally we hallucinate. We are error-prone.
There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths.
Our ancestors lived out of doors. They were as familiar with the night sky as most of us are with our favorite television programs.
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses.
If the constellations had been named in the twentieth century, I suppose we would see bicycles and refrigerators in the sky.
Looking at fires when high, by the way, especially through one of those prism kaleidoscopes which image their surroundings, is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful experience.
The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.
Except in pure mathematics, nothing is known for certain (although much is certainly false).
Some racists still reject the plain testimony written in the DNA that all the races are not only human but nearly indistinguishable. . . .
I consider it an extremely dangerous doctrine, because the more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves.
The fact that someone says something doesn't mean it's true. Doesn't mean they're lying, but it doesn't mean it's true.
When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.
Where did God come from? If we decide this is an unanswerable question why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question.
Human beings grew up in forests; we have a natural affinity for them. How lovely a tree is, straining toward the sky.
We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock.
Science is not perfect. It's often misused; it's only a tool, but it's the best tool we have. Self-correcting , ever changing, applicable to everything: with this tool, we vanquish the impossible.
Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgement, the manner in which information is coordinated and used.
The Hindu religion is the only of the World's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths.