Quote

Our intelligence is imperfect, surely, and newly arisen the ease with which it can be sweet-talked, overwhelmed, or subverted by other hardwired propensities - sometimes themselves disguised as the cool light of reason - is worrisome.

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
Reason
Talked
Propensities
Sometimes
Surely
Hardwired
Ease
Arisen
Cool
Newly
Intelligence
Disguised
Sweet
Propensity
Light
Overwhelmed
Subverted
Truth
Imperfect
Worrisome

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We are...capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet. To enhance enormously our understanding of the Universe, and to carry us to the stars.
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One of the great commandments of science is: 'Mistrust arguments from authority.'
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In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work.
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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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Thus the recent rapid evolution of human intelligence is not only the cause of but also the only conceivable solution to the many serious problems that beset us.
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In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.
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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
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Many religions have attempted to make statues of their gods very large, and the idea, I suppose, is to make us feel small. But if that's their purpose, they can keep their paltry icons. We need only look up if we wish to feel small.
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Some racists still reject the plain testimony written in the DNA that all the races are not only human but nearly indistinguishable. . . .
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Because men, compared to male chimps, have such relatively small testicles (large testicles indicate a species where many males mate, one after the other, with the same female), we might guess that promiscuous societies were uncommon in the immediate human past.
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To live in the hearts of others is to never die in those we leave behind.
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What an astonishing thing a book is.
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A millennium before Europeans were willing to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions.
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We can't help it. Life looks for life.
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We are, each of us, a multitude. Within us is a little universe.
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Books tap the wisdom of our species -- the greatest minds, the best teachers -- from all over the world and from all our history. And they're patient.
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We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature's a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.
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The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.
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A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
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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.
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