The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit. Carl Sagan More Quotes by Carl Sagan More Quotes From 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 taken science long The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous. Carl Sagan understanding wisdom brain I don't want to believe. I want to know. Carl Sagan religious inspirational life We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. Carl Sagan education motivational knowledge Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. Carl Sagan educational hope positive 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 vastness prejudice science If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves. Carl Sagan ifs You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe Carl Sagan atheist faith death The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff. Carl Sagan iron apples stars Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. Carl Sagan motivation life art The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Carl Sagan evidence absence It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Carl Sagan atheist witty death Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence Carl Sagan evidence demand claims 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 dangerous-world marijuana weed The total number of stars in the Universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth. Carl Sagan stars numbers beach I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - [...] when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. Carl Sagan children hands america The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it. Carl Sagan names children jesus If you look at Earth from space you see a dot, that's here. That's home. That's us. It underscores the responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. Carl Sagan responsibility home blue Better the hard truth, I say, than the comforting fantasy. Carl Sagan hard fantasy comforting Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars. Carl Sagan ocean stars long
