“We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.” — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Not explaining science seems to me perverse. When you're in love, you want to tell the world. — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Science cuts two ways, of course; its products can be used for both good and evil. But there's no turning back from… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
The politicians and the religious leaders and the weapons scientists have been at it for a long time and they've made a… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“The technological perils that science serves up, its implicit challenge to received wisdom, and its perceived difficulty, are all reasons for some… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“Pseudoscience is embraced, it might be argued, in exact proportion as real science is misunderstood.” — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science. — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
I believe that in every person is a kind of circuit which resonates to intellectual discovery-and the idea is to make that… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“There are many hypotheses in science that are wrong. That's perfectly alright; it's the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“In its encounter with Nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Chlorine is a deadly poison gas employed on European battlefields in World War I. Sodium is a corrosive metal which burns upon… — 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
It's a lazy Saturday afternoon, there's a couple lying naked in bed reading Encyclopediea Brittannica to each other, and arguing about whether… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“The Man in the Moon is in fact a record of ancient catastrophes--most of which took place before humans, before mammals, and… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
One of the reasons for its success is that science has a built-in, error-correcting machinery at its very heart. Some may consider… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot.… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“I find many adults are put off when young children pose scientific questions. Why is the Moon round? the children ask. Why… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
The claim is also sometimes made that science is as arbitrary or irrational as all other claims to knowledge, or that reason… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
[N]o scientist likes to be criticized. ... But you don't reply to critics: "Wait a minute, wait a minute; this is a… — 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
“It is conventional wisdom now that anything built by the government will be a disaster. But the two "Voyager" spacecraft were built… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe,… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“And if the world does not in all respects correspond to our wishes, is this the fault of science, or of those… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don't see… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“The secrets of evolution, are time and death. There's an unbroken thread that stretches from those first cells to us.” — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
Science is a collaborative enterprise, spanning the generations. When it permits us to see the far side of some new horizon, we… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“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
I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“New generations grew to maturity wholly ignorant of the sky that had transfixed their ancestors and that had stimulated the modern age… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
“El reduccionismo no parece conceder un respeto suficiente a la complejidad del universo. A algunos se les antoja como un híbrido curioso… — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
The fossil record implies trial and error, the inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with a Great Designer (though not a… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“[ 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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Any sufficiently crisp question can be answered by a single binary digit-0 or 1, yes or no. — Carl Sagan Copy Share Image
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 Image
![“[N]o scientist likes to be criticized. ... But you don't reply to critics: "Wait a minute, wait a minute; this is a really good idea. I'm very fond of it. It's done you no harm. Please don't attack it." That's not the way it goes. The hard but just rule is that if the ideas don't work, you must…” quote by Carl Sagan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/bbf/carl-sagan-160_criticism_n-o-scientist-likes-to-be-criticized-but_877385.jpg)
![“[ When a religious couple wrote to Sagan about fulfilled prophecies, he wrote back in May 1996 :] If ‘fulfilled prophecy’ is your criterion, why do you not believe in materialistic science, which has an unparalleled record of fulfilled prophecy? Consider, for example, eclipses.” quote by Carl Sagan](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/875/carl-sagan-160_belief_when-a-religious-couple-wrote-to-sagan-a_25095.jpg)
