Carl Sagan — People

Plain brass telescope on a low teal support, with a small loose ring beside it — Original artwork

Anything you don't understand, Mr. Rankin, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence. You simply turn your mind off and say God did it.

Carl Sagan

Painterly two toy soldiers on scorched ground, one standing and one fallen, beneath a smoky sky. — Original artwork

Every government that prepares for war paints its adversaries as monsters, she said. “They don’t want you thinking of the other side as human. If the enemy can think and feel, you might hesitate to kill them. And killing is very important. Better to see them as monsters.”

Carl Sagan

Three grey cloth patches pinned to a board, each edged with different colored thread: gold, red and green. — Original artwork

If we like them, they're freedom fighters, she thought. If we don't like them, they're terrorists. In the unlikely case we can't make up our minds, they're temporarily only guerrillas.

Carl Sagan

A man sits at a kitchen table at night before a cooling apple pie whose steam rises into a window full of stars and galaxies. — Original artwork

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

Carl Sagan

A tiny white paper boat floats on dark blue rippling water. — Original artwork

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

Carl Sagan

A round brass-framed mirror leans beside a yellow vase and a green sprig. — Original artwork

She came to admire him so much that his love for her affected her own self-esteem: She liked herself better because of him.

Carl Sagan

A crowd on the shore jeers and points at a caravel, a paddle steamer and an early biplane setting out across a bright harbour, a clown among them. — Original artwork

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.

Carl Sagan

Cracked cream eggshell holding a tiny brass keyhole plate, with loose shell pieces — Original artwork

There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all right; they're the aperture to finding out what's right.

Carl Sagan

A brass magnifying loupe rests beside a spiral of glowing pale beads on dark teal felt. — Original artwork

...there was something unmistakably attractive about them. They were excellent at what they did and, especially in the discovery process, were utterly absorbed in their work.

Carl Sagan

A delicate lavender butterfly wing rises from a broken eggshell, casting a long shadow across a lavender surface at sunrise. — Original artwork

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

Carl Sagan

Painterly small globe, camera, gears and quill arranged over faint circuit-like lines on teal. — Original artwork

You know, someone in my position—new inventions, new industries—is always on the thin edge of breaking some law or other. Usually it’s because the old laws haven’t caught up with the new technology. You can spend a lot of your time in litigation. It cuts down your effectiveness.

Carl Sagan

A small figure stands at the prow of a luminous sailing ship drifting through a starfield of galaxies and nebulae. — Original artwork

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

Carl Sagan

A figure in a long coat studies a brass balance weighing a feather against a stack of books in a dim observatory study. — Original artwork

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Carl Sagan

A figure seen from behind stands on a hillside at dusk, its silhouette filled with glowing stardust beneath a vast nebula. — Original artwork

We are made of star-stuff.

Carl Sagan

A silhouetted figure presses a hand to a spacecraft window looking at a tiny pale dot caught in a beam of sunlight in black space. — Original artwork

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us.

Carl Sagan

A family sits on a sofa in a 1990s living room as glowing lines trace signals through the television, microwave, phone and car key. — Original artwork

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

Carl Sagan

A late-night talk-show set with a desk, a small telescope and a starfield backdrop, seen from the audience under hot studio lights. — Original artwork

Billions and billions.

Misattributed to Carl Sagan

A robotic spacecraft with a dish antenna sails past the banded face of Jupiter, a figure at a console watching in the foreground. — Original artwork

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Misattributed to Carl Sagan