And what greater might do we possess as human beings than our capacity to question and to learn?

Ten long trips around the sun since I last saw that smile, but only joy and thankfulness that on a tiny world in the vastness, for a couple of moments in the immensity of time, we were one.

A lot of people have this ego need that makes them want to believe that Earth is the center of the universe and humans are the most important species, the supreme expression of creation.

If you are searching for sacred knowledge and not just a palliative for your fears, then you will train yourself to be a good skeptic.

Carl did not want to believe. He wanted to know.

I guess I so desperately want to see us put this planet right. It's so horrifying to me that a fifth of us are starving every night, and that forty thousand children die every single day.

We smoked the way other American families would have wine with dinner. For us, it was our sacrament. It was something that made a great life sweeter in every possible way.

Interviewer: "Didn't [Sagan] want to believe?" Druyan: "He didn't want to believe. He wanted to know.

Science is nothing more than a neverending search for the truth.

Carl took on the military-industrial complex. He campaigned around the world for an end to the production of weapons of mass destruction. To him it was a perversion of science.

People think that if you are a scientist you have to give up that joy of discovery, that passion, that sense of the great romance of life. I say thats completely opposite of the truth.

She became at once more intimate and more exalted.

Use what you have got to create your world.

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.

The man who is always talking about being a gentleman, never is one.

Photographer's advice: Stand in the right place.

Children used to be outside. Now the streets are empty. People are indoors looking at television or something.

Do not worry about what others are doing! Each of us should turn the searchlight inward and purify his or her own heart as much as possible.

They that are virtuous from principle may receive confidence in every capacity; but they that are so from custom or habit, are capable of trust only in matters of ordinary and settled occurrence.

If someone spreads hate then they're not your religious leader.

My language! heavens!I am the best of them that speak this speech. Were I but where 'tis spoken.