Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and other natural sciences. Profoundly inspirational Carl Sagan quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
Famous Carl Sagan Quotes
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. Carl Sagan
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. Carl Sagan
The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies was made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff. Carl Sagan
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. Carl Sagan
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. Carl Sagan
Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. Carl Sagan
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Carl Sagan
One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time. Carl Sagan
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Carl Sagan
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. Carl Sagan
The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous. Carl Sagan
A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts still called leaves imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time proof that humans can work magic. Carl Sagan
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. Carl Sagan
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Carl Sagan
Don’t forget to also read our collection of excellence Neil Degrasse Tyson quotes quotes.
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere. 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
It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out. Carl Sagan
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Carl Sagan
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Carl Sagan
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
For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness. Carl Sagan
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. Carl Sagan
We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good. Carl Sagan
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. Carl Sagan
We are like butterflies that flutter for a day and think it is forever. Carl Sagan
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere. Carl Sagan
The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space. Carl Sagan
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever. Carl Sagan
We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be. Carl Sagan
It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out. Carl Sagan
For additional reading, be sure to also check out these good Stephen Hawking quotes.
Frederick Douglass 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
Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. Carl Sagan
Intellectual capacity is no guarantee against being dead wrong. Carl Sagan
We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good. Carl Sagan
The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five. Carl Sagan
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
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense. Carl Sagan
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. Carl Sagan
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. Carl Sagan
I don’t want to believe. I want to know. Carl Sagan
Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception. Carl Sagan
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
It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Carl Sagan
The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five. Carl Sagan
I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star. Carl Sagan
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
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 co ordinated and used. Carl Sagan
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together. Carl Sagan
Science has two rules. First there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Second whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. Carl Sagan
The obvious is sometimes false; the unexpected is sometimes true. Carl Sagan
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Carl Sagan
We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be. Carl Sagan
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
We are each of us largely responsible for what gets put in to our brains. For what as adults we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain we can change ourselves. Carl Sagan
I consider it an extremely dangerous doctrine, because the more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves. Carl Sagan
National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. Carl Sagan
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
If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. Carl Sagan
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. Carl Sagan
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
She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. Carl Sagan
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
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
Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries. Carl Sagan
If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth. Carl Sagan
The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. Carl Sagan
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Carl Sagan
It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. Carl Sagan
The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas. Carl Sagan
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. Carl Sagan
The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God, one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity. Carl Sagan
Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Carl Sagan
In all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other. Carl Sagan
Our posturings, our imagined self importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Carl Sagan
You have to know the past to understand the present. Carl Sagan
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. Carl Sagan
But nature is always more subtle, more intricate, more elegant than what we are able to imagine. Carl Sagan
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Carl Sagan
People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. The last way for skeptics to get the attention of bright, curious, intelligent people is to belittle or condescend or to show arrogance toward their beliefs. Carl Sagan
Do you agree with these quotes from Carl Sagan? I would love to know. Please let me know your favorite Carl Sagan quotes in the comment section below.
