Carl Sagan

It is possible - given absolute control over the media and the police - to rewrite the memories of hundreds of millions of people… It works to erase public memory of profound political mistakes, and thus to guarantee their eventual repetition.

What's wrong with admitting that we don't know something? Is our self-esteem so fragile?

There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

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

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.

Most of the people that I deal with are human. So I've had a lot of experience with that.

It's been said that astronomy is a humbling and, I might add, a character-building experience.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

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

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.

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

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.