If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more? Carl Sagan More Quotes by Carl Sagan More Quotes From Carl Sagan We are made of star-stuff. Our bodies are made of star-stuff. There are pieces of star within us all. Carl Sagan pieces stars body Science is not perfect. It's often misused; it's only a tool, but it's the best tool we have. Self-correcting , ever changing, applicable to everything: with this tool, we vanquish the impossible. Carl Sagan tools self perfect The fact that someone says something doesn't mean it's true. Doesn't mean they're lying, but it doesn't mean it's true. Carl Sagan education mean lying The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff Carl Sagan cosmos stars stuff Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches. The other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger. Well that's the kind of situation we are actually in. The amount of weapons that are available to the United States and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what's needed to dissuade the other, that if it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable. What is necessary is to reduce the matches and to clean up the gasoline. Carl Sagan two science enemy Organic as a dandelion seed, [the ship of our imagination] will carry us to worlds of dreams and worlds of facts Carl Sagan imagination dream world Understanding is a kind of ecstasy Carl Sagan curiosity understanding kind It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it. Carl Sagan sunset passion science The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. Carl Sagan mind teacher inspire And you are made of a hundred trillion cells. We are, each of us, a multitude. Carl Sagan hundred cells made The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir. Carl Sagan flames light darkness The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. Carl Sagan ocean stars long 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 smart judgement knowing Stars are phoenixes, rising from their own ashes. Carl Sagan phoenix ashes stars Don't judge everyone else by your own limited experience. Carl Sagan judging The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. Carl Sagan media ignorance sound Humans - who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals - have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. Carl Sagan pain animal inspirational Even Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, and Albert Einstein made serious mistakes. But the scientific enterprise arranges things so that teamwork prevails: What one of us, even the most brilliant among us, misses, another of us, even someone much less celebrated and capable, may detect and rectify. Carl Sagan teamwork missing mistake You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other. Carl Sagan cutting dream beautiful There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s perfectly all right: it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. Carl Sagan aperture truth self
