Quote

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.

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
Understand
Edges
Stealth
Use
Cat
Camouflage
Better
Shape
Deficiency
Must
Survival
Limitations
Make
Tools
Cats
Shapes
Tool
Intelligence
Limitation
Learn
Edge
Deficiencies

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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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The uniqueness of humans has been claimed on many grounds, but most often because of our tool-making, culture, language, reason and morality. We have them, the other animals don't, and -- so the argument goes -- that's that.
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Our ancestors lived out of doors. They were as familiar with the night sky as most of us are with our favorite television programs.
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That kind of skeptical, questioning, don't accept what authority tells you attitude of science - is also nearly identical to the attitude of mind necessary for a functioning democracy. Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other.
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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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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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The visions we offer our children shape the future. It _matters_ what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.
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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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It took the Church until 1832 to remove Galileo 's work from its list of books which Catholics were forbidden to read at the risk of dire punishment of their immortal souls.
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Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
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Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.
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What an astonishing thing a book is.
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Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience.
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The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge it has no in the endeavor of science. We do not know in advance who will discover fundamental insights.
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Every time you look up at the sky, every one of those points of light is a reminder that fusion power is extractable from hydrogen and other light elements, and it is an everyday reality throughout the Milky Way Galaxy.
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It is clear that the nations of the world now can only rise and fall together. It is not a question of one nation winning at the expense of another. We must all help one another or all perish together.
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First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?
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If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power.
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We are made of starstuff.
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