Carl Sagan
"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes, whichever one it is, you’re in deep trouble. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. 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, maybe once in a hundred cases, 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. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones."
155 Quotes
"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes, whichever one it is, you’re in deep trouble. If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. 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, maybe once in a hundred cases, 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. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones."
"يبدو لي أن المطلوب هو توازن بديع بين حاجتين متضاربتين: أشد التدقيق تشككًا في كل الفرضيات التي تُعرض علينا، وفي الوقت نفسه انفتاح كبير على الأفكار الجديدة. من الواضح أن هذين النمطين من التفكير يتسمان ببعض التوتر. ولكن إن كنت قادرًا على ممارسة أحد هذين النمطين فحسب، أيًا كان، فأنت في ورطة عميقة.
فإن كنت متشككًا فحسب، فلن تنفذ إليك أفكار جديدة. ولن تتعلم شيئًا جديدًا أبدًا. وستتحول إلى شخص عجوز متذمر مقتنع بأن الهراء يحكم العالم. (وهناك، بالطبع، الكثير من المعطيات التي تدعم رأيك). ولكن بين الفينة والأخرى، ربما مرة واحدة من بين مئة حالة، تثبت فكرة جديدة صوابها، وتكون صحيحة ورائعة. وإن كنت تبالغ في عادة التشكك في كل شيء، فسوف تفوتك هذه الفكرة أو تستاء منها، وفي كلتا الحالتين ستقف حجر عثرة أمام الفهم والتقدم.
أما من ناحية أخرى، فإن كنت منفتحًا لدرجة السذاجة ولا تملك ذرة من الحس النقدي، فلن تستطيع التمييز بين النافع والعديم الجدوى."
Carl Sagan
"It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power; we are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible, and which are not. …"
"إنها لمسؤولية العلماء ألا يكتموا المعرفة أبدًا، مهما كانت تلك المعرفة محرجة، ومهما أزعجت أصحاب السلطة؛ فنحن لسنا أذكياء بما يكفي لنقرر أي أجزاء من المعرفة مباحة، وأيها ليست كذلك."
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."
"إن تجريم القنب أمر شائن، وعقبة تحول دون الاستفادة الكاملة من عقار يساعد على إحداث السكينة والبصيرة، والحساسية والألفة التي تشتد الحاجة إليها في هذا العالم الذي يزداد جنونًا وخطورة."
Carl Sagan
"Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of magic."
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 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. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. 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."
Carl Sagan
"How thoroughly the chimps and bonobos have erased the list of purported human distinctions!-self-awareness, language, ideas and their association, reason, trade, play, choice, courage, love and altruism, laughter, concealed ovulation, kissing, face-to-face sex, female orgasm, division of labor, cannibalism, art, music, politics, and featherless bipedalism, besides tool using, tool making, and much else. Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the apes casually knock them down--toppling the pretension that humans constitute some sort of biological aristocracy among the beings of Earth. Instead, we are more like the nouveau riche, incompletely accommodated to our recent exalted state, insecure about who we are, and trying to put as much distance as possible between us and our humble origins. It's as if our nearest relatives, by their very existence, refute all our explanations and justifications. So as counterweights to human arrogance and pride, it is good for us that there are still apes on Earth."
Carl Sagan
"There were many women in the Soviet scientific community, proportionately more so than in the United States. But they tended to occupy menial middle-level positions, and male Soviet scientists, like their American counterparts, were puzzled about a pretty woman with evident scientific competence who forcefully expressed her views."
Carl Sagan
"An atheist is someone who is certain that God doesn't exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence."
Carl Sagan
"The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little goodevidence."
Carl Sagan
"An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to uptime causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the Universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and you be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed."
Carl Sagan
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself"
Carl Sagan
"Does trying to understand the universe at all betray a lack of humility? I believe it is true that humility is the only just response in a confrontation with the universe, but not a humility that prevents us from seeking the nature of the universe we are admiring. If we seek that nature, then love can be informed by truth instead of being based on ignorance or self-deception. If a Creator God exists, would He or She or It or whatever the appropriate pronoun is, prefer a kind of sodden blockhead who worships while understanding nothing? Or would He prefer His votaries to admire the real universe in all its intricacy? I would suggest that science is, at least in part, informed worship."
Carl Sagan
"All that we have seen is something of a vast and intricate and lovely universe. There is no particular theological conclusion that comes out of an exercise such as the one we have just gone through. What is more, when we understand something of the astronomical dynamics, the evolution of worlds, we recognize that worlds are born and worlds die, they have lifetimes just as humans do, and therefore that there is a great deal of suffering and death in the cosmos if there is a great deal of life."
Carl Sagan
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are."
Carl Sagan
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent."
Carl Sagan
"The human understanding is no dry light, but receives infusion from the will and affections; whence proceeds sciences which may be called "sciences as one would." For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from supersition; the light of experience, from arrogrance and pride; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding.1620 - Francis Bacon"
Carl Sagan
"Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us."
Carl Sagan
"We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of this memory is called the library"
Carl Sagan
"All her life, dreams had been her friends. Her dreams were unusually detailed, well-structured, colorful."
Carl Sagan
"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere."
Carl Sagan
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