“Cosmos” by Carl Sagan - Quodid

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

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

imagination discovery

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

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

God evolution paleontology

With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

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

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

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

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

wonder creation food

Matter is composed chiefly of nothing.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such puny creatures as we are.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

wonder power indifference

Nobody listens to mathematicians

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

War is murder writ large.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

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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 in Cosmos

perspective preciousness universe disagreement

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

universe excitement tingling sensation mysteries

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 in Cosmos

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A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1… no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger still.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

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The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

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The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans. But there is no evidence that its functioning is due to anything more than the 1014 neural connections that build an elegant architecture of consciousness.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

evidence brain neuroscience consciousness architecture

There is no other species on the Earth that does science. It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It 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. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.

—Carl Sagan in Cosmos

science earth tools brains

About Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan was an American astrophysicist. He is best known as a science-popularizer who showed the world the wonders of the scale and complexity of the universe.

Picture of Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan (; SAY-gən; November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. Initially an assistant professor at Harvard, Sagan later moved to Cornell, where he was the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. He played an active role in the Mariner, Viking and Voyager programs. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and several popular science books, starting with The Cosmic Connection. He won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for The Dragons of Eden.

[from Wikipedia]

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