Carl Sagan

We have entered, almost without noticing, an age of exploration and discovery unparalleled since the Renaissance.

Ours is the first generation that has grown up with science-fiction ideas.

We are the first species to have taken our evolution into our own hands.

My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god.

I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

Much of human history can, I think, be described as a gradual and sometimes painful liberation from provincialism, the emerging awareness that there is more to the world than was generally believed by our ancestors.

The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.

Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.

They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.

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.

Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?

Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

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.

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.

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.

Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home.

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

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.

Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth.

Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors.

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

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?

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

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.

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.

The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

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 star stuff.

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.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.