Carl Sagan Quotes.
We start out a million years ago in a small community on some grassy plain; we hunt animals, have children, and develop a rich social, sexual, and intellectual life, but we know almost nothing about our surroundings.
No other planet in the solar system is a suitable home for human beings; it’s this world or nothing. That’s a very powerful perception.
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?
The boundary between space and the earth is purely arbitrary. And I’ll probably always be interested in this planet – it’s my favorite.
There is a wide, yawning black infinity. In every direction, the extension is endless; the sensation of depth is overwhelming. And the darkness is immortal. Where light exists, it is pure, blazing, fierce; but light exists almost nowhere, and the blackness itself is also pure and blazing and fierce.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
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.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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.
Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.
Most of the people that I deal with are human. So I’ve had a lot of experience with that.
I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgments.
