Carl Sagan Quotes, Believe Quotes, Giving Quotes

After I give lectures-on almost any subject-I am often asked, "Do you believe in UFOs?" I'm always struck by how the question is phrased, the suggestion that this is a matter of belief and not evidence. I'm almost never asked, "How good is the evidence that UFOs are alien spaceships?"

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Believe Quotes , Giving Quotes

Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Goal Quotes , Custodians Quotes

If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress.

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There are lots of ways to communicate what we know, but few ways to communicate what we feel. Music is one way to communicate emotions.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Music Quotes , Way Quotes

Some 5 billion years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth... then the sun will begin to die, life will be extinguished, the oceans will boil and evaporate away.

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By looking far out into space we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe, back toward the epoch of the Big Bang.

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Our perceptions are fallible. We sometimes see what isn't there. We are prey to optical illusions. Occasionally we hallucinate. We are error-prone.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Errors Quotes , Perception Quotes

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.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Differences Quotes , Physics Quotes

I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Rights Quotes , Oath Of Office Quotes

What an astonishing thing a book is.

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If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Science Quotes , Acceptance Quotes

The Platonists and their Christian successors held the peculiar notion that the Earth was tainted and somehow nasty, while the heavens were perfect and divine. The fundamental idea that the Earth is a planet, that we are citizens of the Universe, was rejected and forgotten.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Christian Quotes , Ideas Quotes

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

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Thoughtful Quotes , Keys Quotes

A tiny blue dot set in a sunbeam. Here it is. That's where we live. That's home. We humans are one species and this is our world. It is our responsibility to cherish it. Of all the worlds in our solar system, the only one so far as we know, graced by life.

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We are made of star-stuff. Our bodies are made of star-stuff. There are pieces of star within us all.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Stars Quotes , Pieces Quotes

Perhaps, in retrospect, there would be little motivation even for malevolent extraterrestrials to attack the Earth; perhaps, after a preliminary survey, they might decide it is more expedient just to be patient for a little while and wait for us to self-destruct.

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Our ancestors lived out of doors. They were as familiar with the night sky as most of us are with our favorite television programs.

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Night Quotes , Doors Quotes

My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings - what we sometimes call "mind" - are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more.

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At the extremes it is difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from rigid, doctrinaire religion.

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

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Tags : Carl Sagan Quotes , Stars Quotes , Dust Quotes