Quote

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Carl Sagan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Carl Sagan
Age: 62 †
Born: 1934
Born: November 9
Died: 1996
Died: December 20
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Cosmologist
Naturalist
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Physicist
Planetary Scientist
Science Communicator
Brooklyn
New York
Carl Edward Sagan
Sagan
Carl E. Sagan
Carl E Sagan
C. E. Sagan
C.E. Sagan
C E Sagan
C. Sagan
C Sagan
Sagan C
Sagan C.
Sagan C. E.
Sagan CE
Stuff
Humorous
Skepticism
Freethinker
Death
Atheist
Persist
Agnosticism
Better
Atheism
Cosmos
Cosmology
Really
However
Grasp
Atheistic
Dying
Delusion
Reassuring
Religion
Thrive
Skeptic
Universe
Satisfying
Agnostic
Science
Witty
Skeptical

More quotes by Carl Sagan

Image
In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?
Carl Sagan
Image
A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
Carl Sagan
Image
The illegality of cannabis is outrageous.
Carl Sagan
Image
One trend that bothers me is the glorification of stupidity, that the media is reassuring people it's alright not to know anything. That to me is far more dangerous than a little pornography on the Internet.
Carl Sagan
Image
Science is not perfect. It's often misused it's only a tool, but it's the best tool we have. Self-correcting , ever changing, applicable to everything: with this tool, we vanquish the impossible.
Carl Sagan
Image
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands. The loom of time and space works the most astonishing transformations of matter.
Carl Sagan
Image
I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation
Carl Sagan
Image
With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.
Carl Sagan
Image
Accommodation to change, the thoughtful pursuit of alternative futures are keys to the survival of civilization and perhaps of the human species.
Carl Sagan
Image
One of the great commandments of science is: 'Mistrust arguments from authority.'
Carl Sagan
Image
It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.
Carl Sagan
Image
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
Carl Sagan
Image
It is clear that the nations of the world now can only rise and fall together. It is not a question of one nation winning at the expense of another. We must all help one another or all perish together.
Carl Sagan
Image
Human beings grew up in forests we have a natural affinity for them. How lovely a tree is, straining toward the sky.
Carl Sagan
Image
Man is the matter of the cosmos, contemplating itself.
Carl Sagan
Image
Indeed the reasoned criticism of a prevailing belief is a service to the proponents of that belief if they are incapable of defending it, they are well advised to abandon it. This self-questioning and error-correcting aspect of the scientific method is its most striking property.
Carl Sagan
Image
In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
Carl Sagan
Image
Religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. ... near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
Carl Sagan
Image
If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power.
Carl Sagan
Image
A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
Carl Sagan