30 Out-Of-This-World Carl Sagan Quotes That Will Blow Your Mind

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

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

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

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

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.

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

We are one species. We are starstuff.

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.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

It means nothing to be open to a proposition we don’t understand.

If we’re capable of conjuring up terrifying monsters in childhood, why shouldn’t some of us, at least on occasion, be able to fantasize something similar, something truly horrifying, a shared delusion, as adults?

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again 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. 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 the mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.

Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.

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.

Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.

It’s hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.

Humans are very good at dreaming, although you’d never know it from your television.

The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.

What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is in a way a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behavior patterns of lizards and baboons: territoriality and aggression and dominance hierarchies. 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. Think of the possibilities.

We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.