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A single message from space will show that it is possible to live through technological adolescence. . . . It is possible that the future of human civilization depends on the receipt of interstellar messages.

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
Space
Message
Future
Messages
Show
Moon
Shows
Civilization
Receipt
Live
Walking
Interstellar
Human
Depends
Receipts
Humans
Single
Adolescence
Possible
Technological

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One trend that bothers me is the glorification of stupidity, that the media is reassuring people it's alright not to know anything. That to me is far more dangerous than a little pornography on the Internet.
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Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities at most, there are experts.
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I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign.
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We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.
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The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.
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The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God,' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.
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I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation
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Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group.
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When you look more generally at life on Earth, you find that it is all the same kind of life. There are not many different kinds there's only one kind. It uses about fifty fundamental biological building blocks, organic molecules.
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We are the universe experiencing itself.
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We are, each of us, a multitude. Within us is a little universe.
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In our time, we have sifted the sands of Mars, we have established a presence there, we have fulfilled a century of dreams!
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The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I’m down. This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse.
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Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? ... No other human institution comes close.
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Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense the stirring of a breeze.
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Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of magic.
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There are lots of ways to communicate what we know, but few ways to communicate what we feel. Music is one way to communicate emotions.
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We wish to find the truth, no matter where it lies. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.
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Man is the matter of the cosmos, contemplating itself.
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We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.
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