Carl Sagan Quotations

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.

 

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

 

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

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

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.

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

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

 

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bambooze. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge - even to ourselves - that we've been so credulous. So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.

 

 

 

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