263 quotes
Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
Evolution in Perspective: The Science Teacher's Compendium (2004)
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.
Cosmos (1980)
Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.
Cosmos (1980)
It's hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.
Contact (1985)
The best antidote for pseudoscience, I firmly believe, is science.
Broca's Brain (1979)
Jingoistic rhetoric and puerile self-congratulatory nationalism.
Contact (1985)
The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer.
Cosmos (1980)
The laws of physics suffice, without supernatural intervention.
Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium (1997)
That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
Contact (1985)
Anatomy is not destiny, but it is not irrelevant either.
The Dragons of Eden (1977)
If the press descended, the science would surely suffer.
Contact (1985)
In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise.
Cosmos (1980)
With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.
Cosmos (1980)
My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings—what we sometimes call “mind”—are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more.
The Dragons of Eden (1977)
The idea of science as a method rather than as a body of knowledge is not widely appreciated outside of science, or indeed in some corridors inside of science.
Broca's Brain (1979)
The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science.
Cosmos (1980)
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)
My high is always reflective, peaceable, intellectually exciting, and sociable, unlike most alcohol highs, and there is never a hangover.
Essay as "Mr. X (1969)
We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
Cosmos (1980)