Carl Sagan

The cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.

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.

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again.

The universe was not made in the interests of human beings. It is not a cozy, comfortable place for us.

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years.

The scientific view of the world is one of humility: we are part of a vast universe, and we are very small in it.

Religions are often based on miracles, but science is based on evidence.

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

The difference between a cult and a religion is that one has a billion followers and the other has a few thousand.

Books are key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society.

The pale blue dot is a reminder of our place in the cosmos.

Human history is a race between education and catastrophe.

The real problem of humanity is the following: we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology.

I can find no room in my mind for many gods; if I were to believe in them, I should be unable to believe in the one God.

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

We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.

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

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth and the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.

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

Look again at 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.