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I don't want to believe. I want to know.

Carl Sagan

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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
Science
Injury
Inspirational
Libertarian
Believe
Atheist
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Knowledge
Religion
Agnostic
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More quotes by Carl Sagan

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If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.
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The uniqueness of humans has been claimed on many grounds, but most often because of our tool-making, culture, language, reason and morality. We have them, the other animals don't, and -- so the argument goes -- that's that.
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The evidence, so far at least and laws of Nature aside, does not require a Designer. Maybe there is one hiding, maddeningly unwilling to be revealed.
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Man is the matter of the cosmos, contemplating itself.
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Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away.
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When you look more generally at life on Earth, you find that it is all the same kind of life. There are not many different kinds there's only one kind. It uses about fifty fundamental biological building blocks, organic molecules.
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The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God,' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.
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It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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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.
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Understanding is a kind of ecstasy
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There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths.
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Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.
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I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It's up to you.
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The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit.
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I am not an atheist. An atheist is someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. I am not that wise, but neither do I consider there to be anything approaching adequate evidence for such a god. Why are you in such a hurry to make up your mind? Why not simply wait until there is compelling evidence?
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Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would he an unprecedented human catastrophe.
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If the press descended, the science would surely suffer.
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If we say that God has always been, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always been?
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We live at a moment when our relationships to each other, and to all other beings with whom we share this planet, are up for grabs.
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Every star may be a sun to someone.
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