Carl Sagan Quotes
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A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1... no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger still.
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The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer.
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The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.
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If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.
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The old man made himself look hard at the Raven and saw that it was not a great bird from the sky but the work of men like himself. This first encounter turned out to be peaceful. The men of the La Pérouse expedition were under strict orders to treat with respect any people they might discover, an exceptional policy for its time and after.
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The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
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Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the world.
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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? … No other human institution comes close.
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For all I know we may be visited by a different extraterrestrial civilization every second Tuesday, but there's no support for this appealing idea. The extraordinary claims are not supported by extraordinary evidence.
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There is a very stunning range of studies... of interstellar organic matter... the cold, dark spaces between the stars are also loaded with organic matter. ...complex organic materials are everywhere.
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If we seek... nature, then love can be informed by truth instead of being based on ignorance or self-deception.
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Do we, holding that the gods exist,deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreamsand lies, while random careless chance andchange alone control the world?
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Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.
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For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.
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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.
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It took the Church until 1832 to remove Galileo's work from its list of books which Catholics were forbidden to read at the risk of dire punishment of their immortal souls.
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With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.
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In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It’s their nature. They can’t help it.
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War is murder writ large.
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For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young, and curious, and brave. It shows much promise.
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'Do you understand what’s going on?''Not at all,' he shouted back. 'I can almost prove this can’t be happening.'
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We find a set of data that strongly implies the presence of complex organic molecules in the outer solar system.
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Imagine we could accelerate continuously at 1 g - what we're comfortable with on good old terra firma - to the midpoint of our voyage, and decelerate continuously at 1 g until we arrive at our destination. It would take a day to get to Mars, a week and a half to Pluto, a year to the Oort Cloud, and a few years to the nearest stars.
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The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans. But there is no evidence that its functioning is due to anything more than the 10