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Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 - December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences

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

– Carl Sagan

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

– Carl Sagan

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One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

– Carl Sagan

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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.

– Carl Sagan

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We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

– Carl Sagan

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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

– Carl Sagan

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

– Carl Sagan

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Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

– Carl Sagan

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A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

– Carl Sagan

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Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

– Carl Sagan

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All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

– Carl Sagan

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If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the Universe.

– Carl Sagan

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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.

– Carl Sagan

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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?

– Carl Sagan

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

– Carl Sagan

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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.

– Carl Sagan

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Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

– Carl Sagan

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.)

– Carl Sagan

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Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

– Carl Sagan

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

– Carl Sagan

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

– Carl Sagan

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They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

– Carl Sagan

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Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?

– Carl Sagan

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We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

– Carl Sagan

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

– Carl Sagan

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Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.

– Carl Sagan

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