Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, who was also a leading figure in other branches of science like cosmology, astrophysics and astrobiology. Sagan is most famous for popularizing science among the general people through his books. His most important and perhaps most significant work is the research that he carried out on extraterrestrial life and that is something that remains one of the top priorities of space research organisations even today. Sagan was a prolific researcher who produced hundreds of research papers throughout a stellar career that spanned over a period of more than three decades. In addition to that, he had also written several popular science based books among which ‘Pale Blue Dot’ and ‘The Dragons of Eden’ are the most famous ones. Sagan was also the co-writer of the hugely popular show ‘Cosmos: A Personal Voyage’ that went on to win several awards. As one would ex-pect, Sagan has also left behind a rich haul of quotes that would appeal to curious minds of all ages, irrespective of their aptitude for the sciences and here are some of the choices ones.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
Carl Sagan
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.
Carl Sagan
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
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.
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 is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.
Frederick Douglass taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path.
Carl Sagan
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.
Carl Sagan
The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.
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.
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
We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers
Carl Sagan
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
Carl Sagan
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
Carl Sagan
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 absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Carl Sagan
The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
Carl Sagan
Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.
If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.
Carl Sagan
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
You have to know the past to understand the present.
My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn’t believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I’m agnostic.
In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.
Carl Sagan
If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.
There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths.
Carl Sagan
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.
If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
Carl Sagan
Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense the stirring of a breeze.
Carl Sagan
There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.
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
It is said that men may not be the dreams of the god, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men.
.. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the 'Momentary' masters of a 'Fraction' of a 'Dot'
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
But I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.
In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch with Annie.
[Dedication to Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan, in Cosmos]
The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.
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?
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.
If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?
Carl Sagan
The fossil record implies trial and error, the inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with a Great Designer (though not a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament.)
Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.
Carl Sagan
All colours are arbitrary.
Carl Sagan
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
Carl Sagan
A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
Carl Sagan
By looking far out into space we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe, back toward the epoch of the Big Bang.
The immense distances to the stars and the galaxies mean that we see everything ins pace int he past, some as they were before the Earth came to be. Telescopes are time machines.
Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.
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