Inspirational Quotes
Words to motivate, inspire, and guide you.
Carl Sagan Quotes
DiscoveryMythsRealityScience Today, we're still loaded down - and, to some extent, embarrassed - by ancient myths, but we respect them as part of the same impulse that has led to the modern, scientific kind of myth. But we now have the opportunity to discover, for the first time, the way the universe is in fact constructed as opposed to how we would wish it to be constructed.
Arms RaceDeterrenceNuclear Weapons The professed function of the nuclear weapons on each side is to prevent the other side from using their nuclear weapons. If that's all it is, then we've gotta as: how many nuclear weapons do you need to do that?
DiscoveryMemorySelf-Realization When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.
ConsequenceEducationIgnoranceScience And TechnologyWarning We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
CelibacyClergyFanaticismHeredity A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
AstronomyCharacter BuildingHumility It's been said that astronomy is a humbling and, I might add, a character-building experience.
Education I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.
CosmosEvolutionHumanityPotentialScience We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution.
DependenceKnowledgeScienceSocietyTechnology We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
CreationFundamentalsUniverse If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
ConsequenceEnvironmental AwarenessPlanet PreservationUnderstanding We're in very bad trouble if we don't understand the planet we're trying to save.
Arms PossessionExcessive ForceMilitary ArsenalNuclear DeterrenceStrategic Balance You probably don't need more weapons than what's required to destroy every city on earth. There's only 2,300 cities. So, the United States, by that criteria, only needs 2,300 nuclear weapons - well, we've got more than 25,000!
Clear ThinkingConsequenceCritical Thinking The dangers of not thinking clearly are much greater now than ever before. It's not that there's something new in our way of thinking - it's that credulous and confused thinking can be much more lethal in ways it was never before.
DiscernmentGeniusLaughterPerception 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.
EarthSpace The boundary between space and the earth is purely arbitrary. And I'll probably always be interested in this planet - it's my favorite.
Human Origins We start out a million years ago in a small community on some grassy plain; we hunt animals, have children, and develop a rich social, sexual, and intellectual life, but we know almost nothing about our surroundings.
AcceptanceAmbitionPerspectiveReality The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
ExistenceHumilityPerspectiveUniverse 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.
CreationHuman NatureImaginationMythologyUnderstanding We hunger to understand, so we invent myths about how we imagine the world is constructed - and they're, of course, based upon what we know, which is ourselves and other animals. So we make up stories about how the world was hatched from a cosmic egg or created after the mating of cosmic deities or by some fiat of a powerful being.
AcceptanceRealityTruthWisdom For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
InsignificancePerspectiveVastness Even these stars, which seem so numerous, are as sand, as dust - or less than dust - in the enormity of the space in which there is nothing.
CreativityImaginationProgress Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
Human Nature Most of the people that I deal with are human. So I've had a lot of experience with that.