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History is full of people who out of fear, or ignorance, or lust for power has destroyed knowledge of immeasurable value which truly belongs to us all. We must not let it happen again.

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
Must
Knowledge
Lust
People
Values
Destroyed
History
Ignorance
Fear
Truly
Political
Value
Happens
Full
Truth
Happen
Immeasurable
Power
Opinion
Belongs

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Chlorine is a deadly poison gas employed on European battlefields in World War I. Sodium is a corrosive metal which burns upon contact with water. Together they make a placid and unpoisonous material, table salt. Why each of these substances has the properties it does is a subject called chemistry.
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Except for children (who don't know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spendtime wondering why nature is the way it is . . .
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We invest far off places with a certain romance... Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game none of them lasts for ever. Your own life, or your bands, or even your species - might be owed to a restless few, drawn by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands, and new worlds.
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Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy.
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If the constellations had been named in the twentieth century, I suppose we would see bicycles and refrigerators in the sky.
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They (i. e., the Pythagoreans) did not advocate the free confrontation of conflicting points of view. Instead, like all orthodox religions, they practised a rigidity that prevented them from correcting their errors.
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We are prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs.
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We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.
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Virtually every major technological advance in the history of the human species - back to the invention of stone tools and the domestication of fire - has been ethically ambiguous.
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All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95% of Americans are scientifically illiterate. That's...the same fraction...of slaves who were illiterate before the Civil War.
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In the vastness of the Cosmos there must be other civilizations far older and more advanced than ours.
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If intelligence is our only edge, we must learn to use it better, to shape it, to understand its limitations and deficiencies -- to use it as cats use stealth, as katydids use camouflage -- to make it the tool of our survival.
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We are made of star-stuff. Our bodies are made of star-stuff. There are pieces of star within us all.
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Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.
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There is never only ONE of anything in nature.
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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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The politicians and the religious leaders and the weapons scientists have been at it for a long time and they've made a thorough mess of it. I mean, we're in deep trouble.
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She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
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Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth.
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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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