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. - Carl Sagan
Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved? - Carl Sagan
There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths. - Carl Sagan
I don't want to believe. I want to know. - Carl Sagan
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. - Carl Sagan
It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power; we are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible, and which are not. … - Carl Sagan
A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. - Carl Sagan
You could just as well say that an agnostic is a deeply religious person with at least a rudimentary knowledge of human fallibility. - Carl Sagan
In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other. - Carl Sagan
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. - Carl Sagan
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. - Carl Sagan
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. - Carl Sagan
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. - Carl Sagan
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are. - Carl Sagan
Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of magic. - Carl Sagan
If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the Universe. - Carl Sagan
Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astounding universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy. - Carl Sagan
We can't help it. Life looks for life. - Carl Sagan
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. - Carl Sagan
The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars. - Carl Sagan
Anyone who's ever significantly changed the course of humanity has either been a Crackpot, a Heretic, or a Dissident. In the case of Albert Einstein, he was all three! - Carl Sagan
If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth. - Carl Sagan
It's a lazy Saturday afternoon, there's a couple lying naked in bed reading Encyclopediea Brittannica to each other, and arguing about whether the Andromeda Galaxy is more 'numinous' than the Ressurection. Do they know how to have a good time, or don't they? - Carl Sagan
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense. - Carl Sagan
We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of this memory is called the library - Carl Sagan
Neuroanatomy, political history, and introspection all offer evidence that human beings are quite capable of resisting the urge to surrender to every impulse of reptilian core of brain. - Carl Sagan
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. - Carl Sagan
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. - Carl Sagan
An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid. - Carl Sagan
You have to know the past to understand the present. - Carl Sagan
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. - Carl Sagan
La prueba de ausencia no es prueba de ausencia - Carl Sagan
The way to find out about our place in the universe is by examining the universe and by examining ourselves - without preconceptions, with as unbiased a mind as we can muster. - Carl Sagan
Religions are often state-protected nurseries of pseudoscience, although there's no reason why religions have to play that role. In a way, it's an artefact from times long gone. - Carl Sagan
Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? - Carl Sagan
We are all star stuff. - Carl Sagan
The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world. - Carl Sagan
...our preferences do not determine what's true. - Carl Sagan
All her life, dreams had been her friends. Her dreams were unusually detailed, well-structured, colorful. - Carl Sagan
Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out. - Carl Sagan
I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. - Carl Sagan
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. - Carl Sagan
We are star stuff harvesting sunlight. - Carl Sagan
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan
If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits? - Carl Sagan
When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it. - Carl Sagan
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. - Carl Sagan
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself - Carl Sagan
Could we possible manage the next phase of human history without first dealing with this penchant for dehumanizing the adversary? - Carl Sagan
We grow up in isolation. Only slowly do we teach ourselves the Cosmos. - Carl Sagan
[When a religious couple wrote to Sagan about fulfilled prophecies, he wrote back in May 1996:]If ‘fulfilled prophecy’ is your criterion, why do you not believe in materialistic science, which has an unparalleled record of fulfilled prophecy? Consider, for example, eclipses. - Carl Sagan
You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it. - Carl Sagan
The first priest was the first rogue who met the first fool. - Carl Sagan
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little goodevidence. - Carl Sagan
The suppression of uncomfortable ideasmay be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no placein the endeavor of science. - Carl Sagan
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. - Carl Sagan
The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five. - Carl Sagan
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - Carl Sagan
Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves. - Carl Sagan
The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous. - Carl Sagan
So beautiful! I had no idea! I had no idea... - Carl Sagan
Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage - at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom. - Carl Sagan
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. - Carl Sagan
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. - Carl Sagan
In that case, on behalf of Earthlife, I urge that, with full knowledge of our limitations, we vastly increase our knowledge of the Solar System and then begin to settle other worlds. - Carl Sagan
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. - Carl Sagan
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. - Carl Sagan