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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.

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
Seem
Millennium
Worry
Nearer
Year
Superstition
Sonorous
Song
Superstitions
Unreason
Science
Cosmos
Siren
Seems
Attractive
Sirens
Years
Edges
Pseudo
Especially
Tempting

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We are, each of us, a multitude. Within us is a little universe.
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That we can now think of no mechanism for astrology is relevant but unconvincing. No mechanism was known, for example, for continental drift when it was proposed by Wegener. Nevertheless, we see that Wegener was right, and those who objected on the grounds of unavailable mechanism were wrong.
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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?
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It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
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We humans look rather different from a tree. Without a doubt we perceive the world differently than a tree does. But down deep, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical.
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Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
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A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1... no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger still.
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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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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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The desire to be connected with the cosmos reflects a profound reality, but we are connected not in the trivial ways that astrology promises, but in the deepest ways.
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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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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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It seems madness to say, 'We're worried that they're going to become addicted to marijuana' -- there's no evidence whatever that it's an addictive drug, but even if it were, these people are dying, what are we saving them from?
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The method of science is tried and true. It is not perfect, it's just the best we have. And to abandon it, with its skeptical protocols, is the pathway to a dark age.
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A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
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He sought a way to preserve the past. John Hershel was one of the founders of a new form of time travel.... a means to capture light and memories. He actually coined a word for it... photography. When you think about it, photography is a form of time travel. This man is staring at us from across the centuries, a ghost preserved by light.
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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.
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We can't help it. Life looks for life.
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It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power we are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible, and which are not.
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