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Quotes from Contact — Carl Sagan

1934–1996 United States

← All quotes by Carl Sagan

23 quotes

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

Contact (1985)

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

Contact (1985)

In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist's signature.

Contact (1985)

Humans are very good at dreaming, although you'd never know it from your television.

Contact (1985)

Humans are good, she knew, at discerning subtle patterns that are really there, but equally so at imagining them when they are altogether absent.

Contact (1985)

It's hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness.

Contact (1985)

Jingoistic rhetoric and puerile self-congratulatory nationalism.

Contact (1985)

That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.

Contact (1985)

If the press descended, the science would surely suffer.

Contact (1985)

The universe was made on purpose, the circle said.

Contact (1985)

In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It's their nature. They can't help it.

Contact (1985)

Many harebrained interpretations were also widely available, especially in weekly newspapers.

Contact (1985)

In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work.

Contact (1985)

The chiliasts made an atheist out of me.

Contact (1985)

We could not guess how different from us they (extraterrestrials) might be. It was hard enough to guess the intentions of our elected representatives in Washington.

Contact (1985)

What I'm saying is, if God wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job.

Contact (1985)

Do we, holding that the gods exist,
deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams
and lies, while random careless chance and
change alone control the world?

Contact (1985)

If we like them, they're freedom fighters, she thought. If we don't like them, they're terrorists. In the unlikely case we can't make up our minds, they're temporarily only guerrillas.

Contact (1985)

She too had found the experience transforming. How could she not? A demon had been exorcised. Several. And just when she felt more capable of love than she had ever been, she found herself alone.

Contact (1985)

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer; there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.

Contact (1985)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Carl Sagan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.