Top 500 Carl Sagan Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no in the endeavor of science. We do not know in advance who will discover fundamental insights.”

— Carl Sagan

102. “So those who wished for some central cosmic purpose for us, or at least our world, or at least our solar system, or at least our galaxy, have been disappointed, progressively disappointed. The universe is not responsive to our ambitious expectations.”

— Carl Sagan

103. “Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense the stirring of a breeze.”

— Carl Sagan

104. “Accommodation to change, the thoughtful pursuit of alternative futures are keys to the survival of civilization and perhaps of the human species.”

— Carl Sagan

105. “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science.”

— Carl Sagan

106. “If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time. The trick is to know which books to read.”

— Carl Sagan

107. “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.”

— Carl Sagan

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

— Carl Sagan

109. “We live on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

— Carl Sagan

110. “I believe that the extraordinary should be pursued. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

— Carl Sagan

111. “A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

— Carl Sagan

112. “Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.”

— Carl Sagan

113. “Be grateful everyday for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”

— Carl Sagan

114. “We are the custodians of life’s meaning.”

— Carl Sagan

115. “Books are key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society.”

— Carl Sagan

116. “And after we returned to the savannahs and abandoned the trees, did we long for those great graceful leaps and ecstatic moments of weightlessness in the shafts of sunlight of the forest roof?”

— Carl Sagan

117. “A galaxy is composed of gas and dust and stars – billions upon billions of stars. Every star may be a sun to someone.”

— Carl Sagan

118. “The desire to be connected with the cosmos reflects a profound reality, but we are connected; not in the trivial ways that astrology promises, but in the deepest ways.”

— Carl Sagan

119. “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

120. “First rule in government spending: Why build one, when you can have two at twice the price?”

— Carl Sagan

121. “Nothing disturbs me more than the glorification of stupidity.”

— Carl Sagan

122. “We are, each of us, a multitude. Within us is a little universe.”

— Carl Sagan

123. “It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri, and the other nearby stars. It will be a species very like us – but with more of our strengths and fewer of our weaknesses.”

— Carl Sagan

124. “Any civilization that doesn’t develop space travel dies.”

— Carl Sagan

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

— Carl Sagan

126. “Billions and billions.”

— Carl Sagan

127. “There are as many atoms in one molecule of DNA as there are stars in a typical galaxy.”

— Carl Sagan

128. “Atoms are mainly empty space. Matter is composed chiefly of nothing.”

— Carl Sagan

129. “The dumbing down of America is evident in the slow decay of substantive content, a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

— Carl Sagan

130. “For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness.”

— Carl Sagan

131. “I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos in which we float, like a mote of dust in the morning sky.”

— Carl Sagan

132. “We are made of star stuff. For the most part, atoms heavier than hydrogen were created in the interiors of stars and then expelled into space to be incorporated into later stars. The Sun is probably a third generation star.”

— Carl Sagan

133. “Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were not that foolish. It makes sense to revere the Sun and the stars, for we are their children.”

— Carl Sagan

134. “Maybe it’s a little early. Maybe the time is not quite yet. But those other worlds – promising untold opportunities – beckon. Silently, they orbit the Sun, waiting.”

— Carl Sagan

135. “The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood.”

— Carl Sagan

136. “The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home.”

— Carl Sagan

137. “If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves.”

— Carl Sagan

138. “We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged.”

— Carl Sagan

139. “We humans appear on the cosmic calendar so recently that our recorded history occupies only the last few seconds of the last minute of December 31st.”

— Carl Sagan

140. “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

141. “Who will speak for Planet Earth?”

— Carl Sagan

142. “Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?”

— Carl Sagan

143. “Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors.”

— Carl Sagan

144. “Knowing a great deal is not the same as being smart; intelligence is not information alone but also judgement, the manner in which information is coordinated and used.”

— Carl Sagan

145. “Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth.”

— Carl Sagan

146. “A blade of grass is a commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars will know the value of a patch of green. And if a blade of grass is priceless, what is the value of a human being?”

— Carl Sagan

147. “This oak tree and me, we’re made of the same stuff.”

— Carl Sagan

148. “It is clear that the nations of the world now can only rise and fall together. It is not a question of one nation winning at the expense of another. We must all help one another or all perish together.”

— Carl Sagan

149. “The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls.”

— Carl Sagan

150. “The sacred truth of science is that there are no sacred truths.”

— Carl Sagan