Carl Edward Sagan (1934–96) was an American astronomer and author of numerous books of popular science.
Born in New York City, Sagan studied at universities of Chicago and Berkeley, worked at Harvard then moved to Cornell, becoming a professor of astronomy and space science in 1970. He studied the surfaces and the atmospheres of the major planets, conducted experiments on the origins of life on earth, and argued about the environmental consequences of nuclear war.
Sagan was controversial in scientific, political, and religious circles for his views on extraterrestrial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and religion. He wrote several popular books explaining developments in astronomy, biology, and psychology. His notable works include Cosmic Connection (1973,) The Dragons of Eden (1977; Pulitzer Prize,) and Broca’s Brain (1979.)
Sagan was president of the Planetary Society 1979–96 and a strong proponent of SeTI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Contact (1985,) Sagan’s novel about the search for alien life, was made into a popular 1997 film.
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Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Emotions
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Imagination
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Perspective
Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Medicine
It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
—Carl Sagan
We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Questions
Except for children (who don’t know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spend time wondering why nature is the way it is.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Nature
It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.
—Carl Sagan
Topics: Science
The fact that so little of the findings of modern science is prefigured in Scripture to my mind casts further doubt on its divine inspiration.
—Carl Sagan
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