Saganism

“Every thinking person fears nuclear war, and every technological state plans for it.
Everyone knows it is madness, and every nation has an excuse.”

— Carl Sagan

“Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches. The other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger. Well that's the kind of situation we are actually in.” — Carl Sagan

“For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads: 'We came in peace for all Mankind.' As the United States was dropping 7 ½ megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock.” — Carl Sagan

“Many persons have inquired: Where is the goal of mankind? [...] Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars. [...] A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.”

— Albert Einstein

“If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves... If we become even slightly more violent, shortsighted, ignorant, and selfish than we are now, almost certainly we will have no future.”

— Carl Sagan

Black-and-white portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., shown from the chest up.

“We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. 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. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans.”

— Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

A Pale Blue Dot Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us.

www.planetary.org/worlds/pale-...

“Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.” — Carl Sagan

“There are crimes much worse than burning books, such as not reading them. By paying for this crime, a man pays with his whole life; if the crime is committed by a nation, it pays with its history.”

— Joseph Brodsky

“Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.”

— Carl Sagan

“We are the only species on the planet, so far as we know, to have invented a communal memory stored neither in our genes nor in our brains. The warehouse of this memory is called the library.”

— Carl Sagan

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

— Richard P. Feynman

“Three passions have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

— Bertrand Russell

“We're developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but not very able to think.”

— Rod Serling

“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”

— Carl Sagan

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Science and democracy have very consonant values and approaches, and I don't think you can have one without the other.”

— Carl Sagan

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

— Albert Einstein

“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

— Edward O. Wilson

“The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we've learned most of what we know. Recently, we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting.”

— Carl Sagan

🎥 @wonderofscience.bsky.social

“Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.”

— Isaac Asimov

“The total amount of energy from outside the solar system ever received by all the radio telescopes on the planet Earth is less than the energy of a single snowflake hitting the ground.”

— Carl Sagan

“When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.”

— Robert A. Heinlein

“What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.”

— G.W.F. Hegel

“Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.”

— Heraclitus

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”

— Albert Einstein

“The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”

- Carl Sagan

A studio portrait of astronomer Carl Sagan standing with his arms crossed, smiling warmly at the camera. He is wearing a red turtleneck sweater. Behind him is a stylized cosmic backdrop featuring a spiral galaxy and scattered stars, giving the impression that he is positioned in front of a vast, luminous universe.

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

— Carl Sagan