Carl Edward Sagan Quotes

"I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive."

"I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true."

"When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it."

"I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students."

"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

"The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous."

"When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions; that is the heart of science."

"There is today-in a time when old beliefs are withering-a kind of philosophical hunger, a need to know who we are and how we got here. It is an on-going search, often unconscious, for a cosmic perspective for humanity."

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition."

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

"We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology."

"I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation"

"We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow biological evolution. There is no reason to think that the evolutionary process has stopped. Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation."

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."

"It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese."

"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?"

"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge."

"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere."