Evolution Quotes by Carl Sagan

“Civilization is a product of the cerebral cortex.”

— Carl Sagan

We are the first species to have taken our evolution into our own hands.

— Carl Sagan

There are more potential combinations of DNA [physical forms] than there are atoms in the universe.

— Carl Sagan

“Those are some of the things that molecules do, given four billion years of evolution”

— Carl Sagan

I've written a number of books that have to do with the evolution of humans, human intelligence, human emotions.

— Carl Sagan

Modern Darwinism makes it abundantly clear that many less ruthless traits, some not always admired by robber barons and Fuhrers - altruism,…

— Carl Sagan

“Natural selection has served as a kind of intellectual sieve, producing brains and intelligences increasingly competent to deal with the laws of…

— Carl Sagan

“the future belongs to those societies that treat new ideas as delicate, fragile and immensely valuable pathways to the future.”

— Carl Sagan

“Significant change might require those who are now high in the hierarchy to move downward many steps. This seems to them undesirable…

— Carl Sagan

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

— Carl Sagan

The secrets of evolution are death and time-the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and…

— Carl Sagan

“The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer.”

— Carl Sagan

“This sort of information gathering is precisely what we call play. And the important function of play is thus revealed: it permits…

— Carl Sagan

We are, in a way, temporary ambulatory repositories for our nucleic acids. This does not deny our humanity; it does not prevent…

— Carl Sagan

“If there is as a continuum from self-reproducing molecules, such as DNA, to microbes, and an evolutionary sequence continuum from microbes to…

— Carl Sagan

“When all is said and done, the invention of writing must be reckoned not only as a brilliant innovation but as a…

— Carl Sagan

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

— Carl Sagan

When you look more generally at life on Earth, you find that it is all the same kind of life. There are…

— Carl Sagan

We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution…

— Carl Sagan

The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer (although not…

— Carl Sagan

There are many other (besides testosterone) behaviour-eliciting hormones fundamental for humen well-being, including estrogen and progesterone in females. The fact that complex…

— Carl Sagan

“In less than ten thousand years, domestication has increased the weight of wool grown by sheep from less than one kilogram of…

— Carl Sagan

(When asked merely if they accept evolution, 45 percent of Americans say yes. The figure is 70 percent in China.) When the…

— Carl Sagan

We've begun at last to wonder about our origins, star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms…

— Carl Sagan

“Naive Darwinists, including many capitalists, have self-servingly argued that oppression of the weak and the poor is a justified application of natural…

— Carl Sagan

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

— Carl Sagan

The fossil record implies trial and error, the inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with a Great Designer (though not a…

— Carl Sagan

We are at a crossroads in human history. Never before has there been a moment so simultaneously perilous and promising. We are…

— Carl Sagan

We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 billion years of…

— Carl Sagan

“On Titan the molecules that have been raining down like manna from heaven for the last 4 billion years might still be…

— Carl Sagan

Thus the recent rapid evolution of human intelligence is not only the cause of but also the only conceivable solution to the…

— Carl Sagan

We are made of stellar ash. Our origin and evolution have been tied to distant cosmic events. The exploration of the cosmos…

— Carl Sagan

“The same few dozen organic molecules are used over and over again in biology for the widest variety of functions.”

— Carl Sagan

While our behavior is still significantly controlled by our genetic inheritance, we have, through our brains, a much richer opportunity to blaze…

— Carl Sagan

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.…

— Carl Sagan

“It may be that there are kernels of truth in a few of these doctrines, but their widespread acceptance betokens a lack…

— Carl Sagan

“If artificial selection can make such major changes in so short a period of time, what must natural selection, working over billions…

— Carl Sagan

“But if humans can make new varieties of plants and animals, must not nature do so also? This related process is called…

— Carl Sagan

Because men, compared to male chimps, have such relatively small testicles (large testicles indicate a species where many males mate, one after…

— Carl Sagan

What does it mean for a civilisation to be a million years old? We have had radio telescopes and spaceships for a…

— Carl Sagan