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A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
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
Magic
Working
Humans
Book
Shackles
Cosmos
Proof
Capable
More quotes by Carl Sagan
If we're capable of conjuring up terrifying monsters in childhood, why shouldn't some of us, at least on occasion, be able to fantasize something similar, something truly horrifying, a shared delusion, as adults?
Carl Sagan
My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence is provided by such a God. We would be unappreciative of that gift if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves.
Carl Sagan
So those who wished for some central cosmic purpose for us, or at least our world, or at least our solar system, or at least our galaxy, have been disappointed, progressively disappointed. The universe is not responsive to our ambitious expectations.
Carl Sagan
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
Your religion assumes that people are children and need a boogeyman so they'll behave. You want people to believe in God so they'll obey the law. That's the only means that occurs to you: a strict secular police force, and the threat of punishment by an all-seeing God for whatever the police overlook. You sell human beings short.
Carl Sagan
Discussing the possibilities of extraterrestrial life: I would love it even if they were short, sullen, grumpy and sexually obsessed. But there just isn't any good evidence.
Carl Sagan
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
Carl Sagan
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.
Carl Sagan
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(14) neural connections that build an elegant architecture of consciousness.
Carl Sagan
I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed.
Carl Sagan
Understanding is a kind of ecstasy
Carl Sagan
You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.
Carl Sagan
A multitude of aspects of the natural world that were considered miraculous only a few generations ago are now thoroughly understood in terms of physics and chemistry.
Carl Sagan
Every time you look up at the sky, every one of those points of light is a reminder that fusion power is extractable from hydrogen and other light elements, and it is an everyday reality throughout the Milky Way Galaxy.
Carl Sagan
That kind of skeptical, questioning, don't accept what authority tells you attitude of science - is also nearly identical to the attitude of mind necessary for a functioning democracy. Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other.
Carl Sagan
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
We are the custodians of life's meaning.
Carl Sagan
In the vastness of the Cosmos there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours.
Carl Sagan
Which aspects of our nature will prevail is uncertain, particularly when our visions and prospects are bound to one small part of the small planet Earth. But up there in the Cosmos an inescapable perspective awaits.
Carl Sagan
We are at a crossroads in human history. Never before has there been a moment so simultaneously perilous and promising. We are the first species to have taken evolution into our own hands.
Carl Sagan