Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

"the vastness is bearable only through love."

- Carl Sagan

"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’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

- Carl Sagan

"It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer."

- Carl Sagan

"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

"The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world."

- Carl Sagan

"The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity, and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world."

- Carl Sagan

"The health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries."

- Carl Sagan

"We can't help it.  Life looks for life."

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

"The truth may be puzzling.  It may take some work to grapple with.  It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices.  It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true.  But our preferences do not determine what's true."

- Carl Sagan

"To live in the hearts we leave behind is to live forever."

- Carl Sagan

"Books break the shackles of time – proof that humans can work magic."

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

"What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person ..."

- Carl Sagan

"Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still."

- Carl Sagan

"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

"Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another."

- Carl Sagan

"The earth is a tiny and fragile world. It needs to be cherished."

- Carl Sagan

"Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known."

- Carl Sagan

"The wolf stands on its hind legs, places its forelegs on the scientist’s shoulders, and places its jaws around the scientist’s head. This is just the wolf’s way of being friendly. If you’re an animal who doesn’t know how to talk, a very clear signal is communicated: “See my teeth? Feel them? I could hurt you, I really could. But I won’t. I like you.""

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

""One of the greatest gifts adults can give—to their offspring and to their society—is to read to children.""

- Carl Sagan

"A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time—proof that humans can work magic."

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

"Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time – proof that humans can work magic."

- Carl Sagan

"One of the greatest gifts adults can give—to their offspring and to their society—is to read to children."

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

"A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called ‘leaves’) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time–proof that humans can work magic."

- Carl Sagan

"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent."

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

"The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space."

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

"Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astounding universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy."

- Carl Sagan

"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever."

- Carl Sagan

"To read is to voyage through time."

- Carl Sagan

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

- Carl Sagan

"The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."

- Carl Sagan

"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

"We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements — transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting — 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

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

- Carl Sagan

"Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

- Carl Sagan

"Coal, oil and gas are called fossil fuels because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives."

- Carl Sagan