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In a complex universe, in a society undergoing unprecedented change, how can we find the truth if we are not willing to question everything and to give a fair hearing to everything?

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
Giving
Willing
Undergoing
Society
Unprecedented
Universe
Complexes
Truth
Complex
Change
Fairs
Give
Fair
Find
Hearing
Everything
Question

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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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I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.
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Our passion for learning ... is our tool for survival.
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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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Modern Darwinism makes it abundantly clear that many less ruthless traits, some not always admired by robber barons and Fuhrers - altruism, general intelligence, compassion - may be the key to survival.
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We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology.
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It's hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.
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If chimpanzees have consciousness, if they are capable of abstractions, do they not have what until now has been described as 'human rights'? How smart does a chimp have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
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It's perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology.
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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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we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers
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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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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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Man is the matter of the cosmos, contemplating itself.
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We can't help it. Life looks for life.
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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 are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.
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It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.
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Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.
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We are, in the most profound sense, children of the Cosmos.
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