Zitat des Tages von Carl Sagan:
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.
All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.
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.
Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.
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.
The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.
When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it.
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.
If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?
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.
A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
No other planet in the solar system is a suitable home for human beings; it's this world or nothing. That's a very powerful perception.
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!
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
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.
There is a wide, yawning black infinity. In every direction, the extension is endless; the sensation of depth is overwhelming. And the darkness is immortal. Where light exists, it is pure, blazing, fierce; but light exists almost nowhere, and the blackness itself is also pure and blazing and fierce.
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.
We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal's 'Pensees' and read, 'I am the great silent spaces between worlds.'
It's been said that astronomy is a humbling and, I might add, a character-building experience.
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.
Most of the people that I deal with are human. So I've had a lot of experience with that.
The boundary between space and the earth is purely arbitrary. And I'll probably always be interested in this planet - it's my favorite.
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
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.
