Top 500 Carl Sagan Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions.”

— Carl Sagan

202. “It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.”

— Carl Sagan

203. “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

204. “My wonder button is being pushed all the time.”

— Carl Sagan

205. “Books tap the wisdom of our species – the greatest minds, the best teachers – from all over the world and from all our history. And they’re patient.”

— Carl Sagan

206. “It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.”

— Carl Sagan

207. “Those who seek power at any price detect a societal weakness, a fear that they can ride into office.”

— Carl Sagan

208. “One trend that bothers me is the glorification of stupidity, that the media is reassuring people it’s alright not to know anything. That to me is far more dangerous than a little pornography on the Internet.”

— Carl Sagan

209. “Ubi dubium ibi libertas: Where there is doubt, there is freedom. LATIN PROVERB.”

— Carl Sagan

210. “We were wanderers from the beginning.”

— Carl Sagan

211. “These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do, given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution.”

— Carl Sagan

212. “The difference between physics and metaphysics is not that the practitioners of one are smarter than the practitioners of the other. The difference is that the metaphysicist has no laboratory.”

— Carl Sagan

213. “Demon mean knowledge in Greek, especially about the material world. Science means knowledge in Latin. A jurisdictional dispute is exposed, even if we look no further.”

— Carl Sagan

214. “If we say that God has always been, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always been?”

— Carl Sagan

215. “What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

— Carl Sagan

216. “Observation: I can’t see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs.”

— Carl Sagan

217. “Frederick Douglas taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path.”

— Carl Sagan

218. “Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.”

— Carl Sagan

219. “Atheism is very stupid.”

— Carl Sagan

220. “It is all a matter of time scale. An event that would be unthinkable in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million.”

— Carl Sagan

221. “Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.”

— Carl Sagan

222. “Virtually every major technological advance in the history of the human species – back to the invention of stone tools and the domestication of fire – has been ethically ambiguous.”

— Carl Sagan

223. “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

224. “One of the great commandments of science is: ‘Mistrust arguments from authority.’”

— Carl Sagan

225. “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

226. “Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group.”

— Carl Sagan

227. “What a marvelous cooperative arrangement – plants and animals each inhaling each other’s exhalations, a kind of planet-wide mutual mouth-to-stoma resuscitation, the entire elegant cycle powered by a star 150 million kilometers away.”

— Carl Sagan

228. “You are worth about 3 dollars worth in chemicals.”

— Carl Sagan

229. “Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.”

— Carl Sagan

230. “The price we pay for anticipation of the future is anxiety about it.”

— Carl Sagan

231. “An atheist has to know more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no God.”

— Carl Sagan

232. “If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.”

— Carl Sagan

233. “The uniqueness of humans has been claimed on many grounds, but most often because of our tool-making, culture, language, reason and morality. We have them, the other animals don’t, and – so the argument goes – that’s that.”

— Carl Sagan

234. “We humans look rather different from a tree. Without a doubt we perceive the world differently than a tree does. But down deep, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical.”

— Carl Sagan

235. “It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

— Carl Sagan

236. “I find science so much more fascinating than science fiction. It also has the advantage of being true.”

— Carl Sagan

237. “I’m only a four-dimensional creature. Haven’t got a clue how to visualise infinity. Even Einstein hadn’t. I know because I asked him.”

— Carl Sagan

238. “My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it. An agnostic is somebody who doesn’t believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I’m agnostic.”

— Carl Sagan

239. “How smart does a chimp have to be before killing him constitutes murder?”

— Carl Sagan

240. “But down deep, at the molecular heart of life we’re essentially identical to trees.”

— Carl Sagan

241. “All inquiries carry with them some element of risk.”

— Carl Sagan

242. “We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of this memory is called the library.”

— Carl Sagan

243. “Science is a collaborative enterprise, spanning the generations. When it permits us to see the far side of some new horizon, we remember those who prepared the way – seeing for them also.”

— Carl Sagan

244. “One of the greatest gifts adults can give – to their offspring and to their society – is to read to children.”

— Carl Sagan

245. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.”

— Carl Sagan

246. “It’s sometimes easier to reject strong evidence than to admit that we’ve been wrong, this is information about ourselves worth having.”

— Carl Sagan

247. “Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation.”

— Carl Sagan

248. “In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”

— Carl Sagan

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

— Carl Sagan

250. “The trapdoor beneath our feet swings open. We find ourselves in bottomless free fall. We are lost in a great darkness, and there’s no one to send out a search party. Given so harsh a reality, of course we’re tempted to shut our eyes and pretend that we’re safe and snug at home, that the fall is only a bad dream.”

— Carl Sagan