43 quotes
We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
Cosmos (1980)
Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew each other. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.
Cosmos (1980)
For a long time the human instinct to understand was thwarted by facile religious explanations.
Cosmos (1980)
I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.
Cosmos (1980)
In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch with Annie.
Cosmos (1980)
If a marker were to be erected today, it might read, in homage to his scientific courage: “He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions.”
Cosmos (1980)
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
Cosmos (1980)
A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number 1... no matter what number you have in mind, infinity is larger still.
Cosmos (1980)
We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.
Cosmos (1980)
War is murder writ large.
Cosmos (1980)
Matter is composed chiefly of nothing.
Cosmos (1980)
Whatever is inconsistent with the facts must be discarded or revised. We must understand the Cosmos as it is and not confuse how it is with how we wish it to be.
Cosmos (1980)
The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.
Cosmos (1980)
I have...a terrible need...shall I say the word?...of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars.
Cosmos (1980)
We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers. We know who speaks for the nations. But who speaks for the human species? Who speaks for Earth?
Cosmos (1980)
Astronomically, the U. S. S. R. and the United States are the same place.
Cosmos (1980)
In our tenure on this planet we've accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage — propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders, hostility to outsiders — all of which puts our survival in some doubt.
Cosmos (1980)
They (i. e., the Pythagoreans) did not advocate the free confrontation of conflicting points of view. Instead, like all orthodox religions, they practised a rigidity that prevented them from correcting their errors.
Cosmos (1980)
The Platonists and their Christian successors held the peculiar notion that the Earth was tainted and somehow nasty, while the heavens were perfect and divine. The fundamental idea that the Earth is a planet, that we are citizens of the Universe, was rejected and forgotten.
Cosmos (1980)
The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans. But there is no evidence that its functioning is due to anything more than the 1014 neural connections that build an elegant architecture of consciousness.
Cosmos (1980)