Carl Sagan

We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.

— Carl Sagan

Valid criticism does you a favor.

— Carl Sagan

Billions and billions.

— Carl Sagan

Science is a way to not fool ourselves.

— Carl Sagan

We are one species. We are starstuff.

— Carl Sagan

All colours are arbitrary.

— Carl Sagan

“Skepticism does not sell well.”

— Carl Sagan

War is murder writ large.

— Carl Sagan

As the ancient myth makers knew, we are children equally of the earth and the sky.

— Carl Sagan

With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.

— Carl Sagan

Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.

— Carl Sagan

All inquiries carry with them some element of risk.

— Carl Sagan

“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”

— Carl Sagan

Cleverly designed experiments are the key.

— Carl Sagan

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

— Carl Sagan

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

— Carl Sagan

Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather…

— Carl Sagan

Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would he an unprecedented human catastrophe.

— Carl Sagan

Humans are very good at dreaming, although you'd never know it from your television.

— Carl Sagan

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

— Carl Sagan

She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness…

— Carl Sagan

We have entered, almost without noticing, an age of exploration and discovery unparalleled since the Renaissance.

— Carl Sagan

I hold that popularization of science is successful if, at first, it does no more than spark the sense of wonder.

— Carl Sagan

First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?

— Carl Sagan

We are...capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for…

— Carl Sagan

Discussing the possibilities of extraterrestrial life: I would love it even if they were short, sullen, grumpy and sexually obsessed. But there…

— Carl Sagan

The impediment to scientific thinking is not, I think, the difficulty of the subject. Complex intellectual feats have been mainstays even of…

— Carl Sagan

And after we returned to the savannahs and abandoned the trees, did we long for those great graceful leaps and ecstatic moments…

— Carl Sagan

There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of…

— Carl Sagan

“We have designed our civilization based on science and technology and at the same time arranged things so that almost no one…

— Carl Sagan

“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

In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that…

— Carl Sagan

An extraterrestrial being, newly arrived on Earth - scrutinizing what we mainly present to our children in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines,…

— Carl Sagan

“To make a contented slave,’ [Frederick] Bailey later wrote, ‘it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken…

— Carl Sagan

“Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were…

— 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

“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will…

— Carl Sagan

“Vast migrations of people—some voluntary, most not—have shaped the human condition. More of us flee from war, oppression, and famine today than…

— Carl Sagan

You mean am I for it or against it? You think this is a key question I'm going to be asked on…

— Carl Sagan

“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