“Science is an ongoing process. It never ends. There is no single ultimate truth to be achieved, after which all the scientists… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Even Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, and Albert Einstein made serious mistakes. But the scientific enterprise arranges things so… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“You squeeze the eyedropper, and a drop of pond water drips out onto the microscope stage. You look at the projected image.… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority'. (Scientists, being primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
While our behavior is still significantly controlled by our genetic inheritance, we have, through our brains, a much richer opportunity to blaze… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“The scientific world view works so well, explains so much and resonates so harmoniously with the most advanced parts of our brains… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Societies will, of course, wish to exercise prudence in deciding which technologies that is, which applications of science are to be pursued… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“We must surrender our skepticism only in the face of rock-solid evidence. Science demands a tolerance for ambiguity. Where we are ignorant,… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
In the way that scepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“A scientist places an ad in a Paris newspaper offering a free horoscope. He receives about 150 replies, each, as requested, detailing… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Every now and then, I'm lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists -… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Why do we put up with it? Do we like to be criticized? No, no scientist enjoys it. Every scientist feels a… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“There is an idea - strange, haunting, evocative - one of the most exquisite conjectures in science and religion. It is entirely… — 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
“He had a natural appetite for the wonders of the Universe. He wanted to know about science. It’s just that all the… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
The impediment to scientific thinking is not, I think, the difficulty of the subject. Complex intellectual feats have been mainstays even of… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Another of Mack’s patients says that the aliens have been taking eggs from her since she was sexually mature, and that her… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Once we lose our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe which dwarfs… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
When a honeybee dies it releases a death pheromone, a characteristic odour that signals the survivors to remove it from the hive.… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“The astonishing fact is that similar mathematics applies so well to planets and to clocks. It needn’t have been this way. We… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
There are many hypotheses in physics of almost comparable brillance and elegance that have been rejected because they did not survive such… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Huygens was, of course, a citizen of his time. Who of us is not? He claimed science as his religion and then… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“It is certainly true that all beliefs and all myths are worthy of a respectful hearing. It is not true that all… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“It may be that there are kernels of truth in a few of these doctrines, but their widespread acceptance betokens a lack… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Science is generated by and devoted to free inquiry: the idea that any hypothesis, no matter how strange, deserves to be considered… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
There is no other species on Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“We have examined the universe in space and seen that we live on a mote of dust circling a humdrum star in… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and said, 'This is better than we thought! The universe… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“The Apollo pictures of the whole Earth conveyed to multitudes something well known to astronomers: On the scale of the worlds -… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the monkeys and apes casually knock them down --… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Whose interest does ignorance serve? If we humans bear, say, hereditary propensities toward the hatred of strangers, isn’t self-knowledge the only antidote?… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“There were excesses in science and there were excesses in religion. A reasonable man wouldn’t be stampeded by either one. There were… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it… — 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
