It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as lo… - Carl Sagan

" "
Engraved portrait of Carl Sagan, facing right

It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.

Collect this quote

About Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan (9 November 1934 – 20 December 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. Sagan assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. Sagan argued the hypothesis, accepted since, that the high surface temperatures of Venus can be attributed to, and calculated using, the greenhouse effect. He testified to the US Congress in 1985 that the greenhouse effect will change the earth's climate system.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, NASA/JPL (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Native Name: Carl Edward Sagan
Alternative Names: Sagan Carl E. Sagan Carl E Sagan C. E. Sagan C.E. Sagan C E Sagan C. Sagan C Sagan Sagan C Sagan C. Sagan C. E. Sagan CE

Share this quote as an image

Customize card

PREMIUM FEATURE

Advanced Search Filters

Filter search results by source, date, and more with our premium search tools.

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Additional quotes by Carl Sagan

Kita memang cenderung menciptakan kosmologi yang akrab bagi kita. Meskipun telah berusaha keras, kita tidak terlalu kreatif. Di dunia Barat, Surga itu tenang dan seperti awan, dan Neraka itu seperti di dalam gunung berapi. Dalam banyak cerita, kedua alam itu diatur oleh hierarki dominasi yang dipimpin dewa atau iblis. Kaum monoteis berbicara tentang raja di atas segala raja. Di setiap budaya, kita membayangkan sesuatu seperti sistem politik kita sendiri yang menjalankan Alam Semesta. Tidak banyak yang mencurigai kemiripan ini.

It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.

Enhance Your Quote Experience

Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.

We hear the crack of a bullwhip because its tip is moving faster than the speed of sound, creating a shock wave, a small sonic boom. A thunderclap has a similar origin. It was once thought that airplanes could not travel faster than sound. Today supersonic flight is commonplace. But the light barrier is different from the sound barrier. It is not merely an engineering problem like the one the supersonic airplane solves. It is a fundamental law of Nature, as basic as gravity. And there are no phenomena in our experience — like the crack of the bullwhip or the clap of thunder for sound — to suggest the possibility of traveling in a vacuum faster than light. On the contrary, there is an extremely wide range of experience — with nuclear accelerators and atomic clocks, for example — in precise quantitative agreement with special relativity.

Loading...