Carl Edward Sagan born (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) in the US and popularly known for his work in Astronomy, Cosmology, Space science, Astrophysics, Astrobiology, and Planetary science. He researched on extraterrestrial life and assembled the first physical messages sent to space the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record. He has published more than 600 scientific papers and was author, co-author of more than 20 books. Carl was awarded NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, among many other honors for his contribution to space science. At least 500 million people across 60 countries watched his public television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, popularizing science on TV. This Carl Sagan quotes about planets, cosmos will help us to understand the planetary science better.
Best Carl Sagan Quotes
- “We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers.”
- “For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” ,Carl Sagan quotes alone in the universe
- “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.”
- “I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.”
- “You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.”
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“I don’t want to believe. I want to know.”
- “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.”
- “How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”
- “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.”
- “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?”
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“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
- “In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.”
- “Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” ,amazing Carl Sagan quotes
- “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
- “I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.”
- “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 quotes about life
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“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.”
- “Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”
- “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 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 quotes star stuff
- “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
- “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.”
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“The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.”
- “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.”
- “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 quotes about earth
- “The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.”
- “Humans everywhere share the same goals when the context is large enough. And the study of the Cosmos provides the largest possible context. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.”
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“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”
- “If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.”
- “If we lived on a planet where nothing ever changed, there would be little to do. There would be nothing to figure out. There would be no impetus for science. And if we lived in an unpredictable world, where things changed in random or very complex ways, we would not be able to figure things out. But we live in an in-between universe, where things change, but according to patterns, rules, or as we call them, laws of nature. If I throw a stick up in the air, it always falls down. If the sun sets in the west, it always rises again the next morning in the east. And so it becomes possible to figure things out. We can do science, and with it we can improve our lives.”
- “In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that in some fields—mathematics, physics, some others—the great discoveries are almost entirely made by youngsters.”
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“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
- “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.”
- “We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.” ,Carl Sagan quotes science
- “I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.”
- “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” ,apple pie Carl Sagan quotes
- “There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.”
- “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.”
- “Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.”
- “What a marvelous cooperative arrangement – plants and animals each inhaling each other’s exhalations, a kind of planet-wide mutual mouth-to-stoma resuscitation, the entire elegant cycle powered by a star 150 million kilometers away.”
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“We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
- “For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.” , Carl Sagan quotes about love
- “A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”
- “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
“A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.” - “A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later such a religion will emerge.”
- “Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.”
- “At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes—an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.”
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“Science is a way to not fool ourselves.”
- “Children [are] born with a zest for knowledge, aware that they must live in a future molded by science, but so often convinced by their culture that science is not for them.”
- “We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. That’s a clear prescription for disaster.” , Carl Sagan quotes about technology
- “If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn’t he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why’s he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there’s one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He’s not good at design, he’s not good at execution. He’d be out of business, if there was any competition.”
- “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.”
- “Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you’re in love, you want to tell the world.”
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“Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations.”
- “Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves, but also to the cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.” , Carl Sagan quotes cosmos
- “Science confers power on anyone who takes the trouble to learn it.”
- “The secrets of evolution are death and time—the deaths of enormous numbers of life forms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations.” , Carl Sagan quotes death
- “Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It’s just the best one we have. In this respect, as in many others, it’s like democracy.”
- “Some ideas are better than others. The machinery for distinguishing them is an essential tool in dealing with the world and especially in dealing with the future. And it is precisely the mix of these two modes of thought [skeptical scrutiny and openness to new ideas] that is central to the success of science.”
- “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.”
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“Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.”
- “The deflation of some of our more common conceits is one of the practical applications of astronomy.” ,Carl Sagan quotes astronomy
- “The method of science is tried and true. It is not perfect, it’s just the best we have. And to abandon it, with its skeptical protocols, is the pathway to a dark age.”
- “I believe that in every person is a kind of circuit which resonates to intellectual discovery—and the idea is to make that resonance work.”
- “I know of no area of human endeavor in which science has not had at least one important thing to say.”
- “I’d like the [Cosmos] series to be so visually stimulating that somebody who isn’t even interested in the concepts will just watch for the effects. And I’d like people who are prepared to do some thinking to be really stimulated.”
- “If the greenhouse effect is a blanket in which we wrap ourselves to keep warm, nuclear winter kicks the blanket off.”
- “For myself, I like a universe that, includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians. A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence.”
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“The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.”
- “Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches. The other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who’s ahead, who’s stronger. Well that’s the kind of situation we are actually in.”
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- “The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home.”
- “There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s perfectly all right; they’re the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.”
- “Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
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“The testimony of our common sense is suspect at high velocities.”
- “While our behavior is still significantly controlled by our genetic inheritance, we have, through our brains, a much richer opportunity to blaze new behavioral and cultural pathways on short timescales.”
- “Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost between two spiral arms in the outskirts of a galaxy, tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.”
- “Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it?” , Carl Sagan quotes best
- “[N]o scientist likes to be criticized. … But you don’t reply to critics: “Wait a minute, wait a minute; this is a really good idea. I’m very fond of it. It’s done you no harm. Please don’t attack it.” That’s not the way it goes. The hard but just rule is that if the ideas don’t work, you must throw them away. Don’t waste any neurons on what doesn’t work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. Valid criticism is doing you a favor.”
- “[Science] is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. … The obvious is sometimes false; the unexpected is sometimes true.”
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“There is much about which even experts are ignorant; this will probably always be the case.”
- “Global nuclear war could have a major impact on climate—manifested by significant surface darkening over many weeks, subfreezing land temperatures persisting for up to several months, large perturbations in global circulation patterns, and dramatic changes in local weather and precipitation rates—a harsh “nuclear winter” in any season.”
- “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.”
- “Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors.” ,books Carl Sagan quotes
- “The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.”
- “The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.” , Carl Sagan quotes about the universe
- “There is a place with four suns in the sky—red, white, blue, and yellow; two of them are so close together that they touch, and star-stuff flows between them. I know of a world with a million moons. I know of a sun the size of the Earth—and made of diamond. There are atomic nuclei a few miles across which rotate thirty times a second. There are tiny grains between the stars, with the size and atomic composition of bacteria. There are stars leaving the Milky Way, and immense gas clouds falling into it. There are turbulent plasmas writhing with X- and gamma-rays and mighty stellar explosions. There are, perhaps, places which are outside our universe. The universe is vast and awesome, and for the first time we are becoming a part of it.”
- “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 good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”
Some of the interesting facts about Carl Sagan:-
- He was one of the early campaigners about climate change
- He was denied a job at Harvard in 1967, later he joined Cornell University until his death
- Carl Sagan became associated with the word “Billions and Billions”
- He was in favor of legalizing pot
All quotes are very inspirational, Thanks for sharing them with us.
Glad you liked them. Stay motivated!!!