“Significant change might require those who are now high in the hierarchy to move downward many steps. This seems to them undesirable… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgement, the manner in… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“the future belongs to those societies that treat new ideas as delicate, fragile and immensely valuable pathways to the future.” — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Contemplated as one grand whole, astronomy is the most beautiful monument of the human mind; the noblest record of its intelligence.” — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Natural selection has served as a kind of intellectual sieve, producing brains and intelligences increasingly competent to deal with the laws of… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
I've written a number of books that have to do with the evolution of humans, human intelligence, human emotions. — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Thus the recent rapid evolution of human intelligence is not only the cause of but also the only conceivable solution to the… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Whatever the reason you're on Mars, I'm glad you're there, and I wish I was with you. — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“The entire evolutionary record on our planet, particularly the record contained in fossil endocasts, illustrates a progressive tendency toward intelligence. There is… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“As in all such technological nightmares, the principal task is to foresee what is possible; to educate use and misuse; and to… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
If intelligence is our only edge, we must learn to use it better, to shape it, to understand its limitations and deficiencies… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Our intelligence is imperfect, surely, and newly arisen; the ease with which it can be sweet-talked, overwhelmed, or subverted by other hardwired… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Dartmouth College employs computer learning techniques in a very broad array of courses. For example, a student can gain a deep insight… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“This sort of information gathering is precisely what we call play. And the important function of play is thus revealed: it permits… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“When all is said and done, the invention of writing must be reckoned not only as a brilliant innovation but as a… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“We humans, as species, are interested in communication with extraterrestrial intelligence. Would not a good beginning be improved communication with terrestral intelligence,… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“I don't think science is hard to teach because humans aren't ready for it, or because it arose only through a fluke,… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Russell commented that the development of such gifted individuals (referring to polymaths) required a childhood period in which there was little or… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
The prediction of nuclear winter is drawn not, of course, from any direct experience with the consequences of global nuclear war, but rather from… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
“Telepathy’ literally means to feel at a distance, just as ‘telephone’ is to hear at a distance and ‘television’ is to see at a… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
“On the scale of worlds—to say nothing of stars or galaxies—humans are inconsequential, a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies,… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
In our time, we have sifted the sands of Mars, we have established a presence there, we have fulfilled a century of dreams! — Carl Sagan Copy Share
“[ When a religious couple wrote to Sagan about fulfilled prophecies, he wrote back in May 1996 :] If ‘fulfilled prophecy’ is your criterion,… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
“Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
A tiny blue dot set in a sunbeam. Here it is. That's where we live. That's home. We humans are one species and this… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
Any sufficiently crisp question can be answered by a single binary digit-0 or 1, yes or no. — Carl Sagan Copy Share
Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain.… — Carl Sagan Copy Share
