Garry's Carl Sagan Page
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Carl Sagan wrote many wonderful books about science and also my favourite novel, "
Contact". He also made the amazing TV series, "Cosmos".
This page contains some of my favourite quotes from Sagan's books. Also see my pages on "The Cosmic Calendar" and "Pale Blue Dot" |
Carl Sagan Quotes
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"We are one species" "We are starstuff" "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." - "Cosmos" "All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value." "Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people." "An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth - scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, the comics, and many books - might easily conclude that we are intent on teaching them murder, rape, cruelty, superstition, credulity and consumerism." "We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow, biological evolution. There is no reason to think that the evolutionary process has stopped. Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation." "In the cosmic perspective there is no reason to think that we are the first or the last or the best." - "The Cosmic Connection" "For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." - "Contact" "Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." "It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." "A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." "It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English (up to fifty words used in correct context) no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese." "Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge." "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." "The ash of stellar alchemy was now emerging into consciousness. At an ever-accelerating pace, it invented writing, cities, art and science, and sent spaceships to the planets and the stars. These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do, given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution." - "Cosmos" "The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous." "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." "We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces." "Our loyalities are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring" - "Cosmos" "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering ... Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves." - "Pale Blue Dot" - Click here for more! |
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