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Portrait of Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan

(1934–1996) University Teacher

1043 quotes in 2795 categories

A tiny rock drifting among billions of stars frames Carl Sagan’s view of the cosmos. He reminds us that humans are a thin film on a solitary planet, that open ideas survive suppression, and that each person matters in a vast universe.

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Carl Sagan was an university teacher, best known for Cosmos.

Quick Facts About Carl Sagan

Born: November 9, 1934
Died: December 20, 1996
Profession: University Teacher
Notable works: Cosmos

About Carl Sagan

He wrote more than six hundred scientific papers and articles, and authored popular science books beginning with The Cosmic Connection. His book The Dragons of Eden earned the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Sagan’s work made complex space science understandable to many people, and he is remembered as a leading science communicator of his time.

Quotes by Carl Sagan

But I could be wrong.

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We are the custodians of life's meaning.

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Nobody listens to mathematicians.

Communication

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We can't help it. Life looks for life.

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I don't want to believe. I want to know.

Atheism

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Who will speak for Planet Earth?

Earth

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We can always take but never give.

Giving

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Atheism is very stupid.

Atheism

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“She found what she had been searching for.”

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Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

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Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity.

Glorification

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The visions we offer our children shape the future.

Child

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If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

Apple pie

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“Our God Is Alive and Well. Sorry About Yours.”

Alive

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Atoms are mainly empty space. Matter is composed chiefly of nothing.

Atoms

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Science is a way of thinking that helps you not to fool yourself.

Fool

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Maxwell's Equations have had a greater impact on human history than any ten presidents.

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How lucky we are to live in this time / the first moment in human history / when we are in fact…

Facts

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We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged.

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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…

Authority

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A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars - billions upon billions of stars. Every star may be a sun…

Astronomy

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“The secrets of evolution, are time and death. There's an unbroken thread that stretches from those first cells to us.”

Biology

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We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what…

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When permitted to listen to alternative opinions and engage in substantive debate, people have been known to change their minds. It can…

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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…

Nature

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Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become…

Alive

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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…

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“The early Sumerian pictograph for god was an asterisk, the symbol of the stars. The early Aztec word for god was Teotl,…

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“Or perhaps they are here, but in hiding because of some Lex Galactica , some ethic of noninterference with emerging civilizations. We…

Earth

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Centuries hence, when current social and political problems may seem as remote as the problems of the Thirty Years' War are to…

Age

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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…

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“The entire evolutionary record on our planet, particularly the record contained in fossil endocasts, illustrates a progressive tendency toward intelligence. There is…

Biology

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“The number of external galaxies beyond the Milky Way is at least in the thousands of millions and perhaps in the hundreds…

Astronomy

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“The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can't all be correct. And what if all of…

Beliefs

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The Romans called the Christians atheists. Why? Well, the Christians had a god of sorts, but it wasn't a real god. They…

Atheist

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“Condon, quick on his feet, replied that the accusation was untrue. He was not a revolutionary in physics. He raised his right…

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“I'm frequently asked, "Do you believe there's extraterrestrial intelligence?" I give the standard arguments- there are a lot of places out there,…

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We are rare and precious because we are alive, because we can think as well as we can. We are privileged to…

Alive

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Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we devised artificial lights and atmospheric…

Ancestor

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“We inhabit a universe where atoms are made in the centers of stars; where each second a thousand suns are born; where…

Astronomy

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Carl Sagan by topic

Science (268) Astronomy (115) Universe (88) Time (86) Religion (86) Humans (80) Life (77) Space (75) Earth (66) World (61) Cosmos (61) Nature (59) Stars (51) Inspirational (49) Thinking (48) Evolution (46) Children (39) Skepticism (38)