#sagan

If you are searching for sacred knowledge and not just a palliative for your fears, then you will train yourself to be a good skeptic. ↗

— Ann Druyan

#positivism #sagan #science #skepticism #theology

Cutting off fundamental, curiosity-driven science is like eating the seed corn. We may have a little more to eat next winter but what will we plant so we and our children will have enough to get through the winters to come? ↗

— Carl Sagan

#sagan #science #wonder #science

It takes a fearless, unflinching love and deep humility to accept the universe as it is. The most effective way he knew to accomplish that, the most powerful tool at his disposal, was the scientific method, which over time winnows out deception. It can't give you absolute truth because science is a permanent revolution, always subject to revision, but it can give you successive approximations of reality. ↗

— Ann Druyan

#carl-sagan #cosmos #fearless #humanity #humility

I have loved to the point of madness. That, which is called madness. That, which to me, is the only sensible way to love. ↗

— Françoise Sagan

#love

The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#humor #reason #sagan #war #humor

When conventional medicine fails, when we must confront pain and death, of course we are open to other prospects for hope. And, after all, some illnesses are psychogenic. Many can be at least ameliorated by a positive cast of mind. Placebos are dummy drugs, often sugar pills. Drug companies routinely compare the effectiveness of their drugs against placebos given to patients with the same disease who had no way to tell the difference between the drug and the placebo. Placebos can be astonishingly effective, especially for colds, anxiety, depression, pain, and symptoms that are plausibly generated by the mind. Conceivably, endorphins -the small brain proteins with morphine-like effects - can be elicited by belief. A placebo works only if the patient believes it’s an effective medicine. Within strict limits, hope, it seems, can be transformed into biochemistry. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#death

Gullibility kills. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#science

And what greater might do we possess as human beings than our capacity to question and to learn? ↗

— Ann Druyan

#carl-sagan #inspirational #science #theology #thought-provoking

Atheism is more than just the knowledge that gods do not exist, and that religion is either a mistake or a fraud. Atheism is an attitude, a frame of mind that looks at the world objectively, fearlessly, always trying to understand all things as a part of nature. ↗

— Emmett F. Fields

#misattributed-to-carl-sagan #religion #attitude

If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#sagan #science #courage