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.

Understanding is a kind of ecstasy

The prediction I can make with the highest confidence is that the most amazing discoveries will be the ones we are not today wise enough to foresee.

If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there’s nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?

Science is an attempt, largely successful, to understand the world, to get a grip on things, to get hold of ourselves, to steer a safe course. Microbiology and meteorology now explain what only a few centuries ago was considered sufficient cause to burn women to death.

In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.

The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.

Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves.

Science is only a Latin word for knowledge

Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.

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

I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgments.

Exploration is in our nature. 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.

Your religion assumes that people are children and need a boogeyman so they’ll behave. You want people to believe in God so they’ll obey the law. That’s the only means that occurs to you: a strict secular police force, and the threat of punishment by an all-seeing God for whatever the police overlook. You sell human beings short.

the return of the Sun after a total eclipse, the rising of the Sun in the morning after its troublesome absence at night were noted by people around the world; these phenomena spoke to our ancestors of the possibility of surviving death. Up there in the skies was also a metaphor of immortality.

But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

If we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and superstition – even when it seems to be doing a little good – we abet a general climate in which scepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate.

Even through your hardest days, remember we are all made of stardust.

Your religion assumes that people are children and need a boogeyman so they’ll behave. You want people to believe in God so they’ll obey the law. That’s the only means that occurs to you: a strict secular police force, and the threat of punishment by an all-seeing God for whatever the police overlook. You sell human beings short.

Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.

Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.

Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions.

Preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

What a marvelous cooperative arrangement – plants and animals each inhaling each other’s exhalations, a kind of planet-wide mutual mouth-to-stoma resuscitation, the entire elegant cycle powered by a star 150 million kilometers away.

It is not a question of one nation winning at the expense of another. We must all help one another or all perish together.

Imagine we could accelerate continuously at 1 g-what we’re comfortable with on good old terra firma-to the midpoint of our voyage, and decelerate continuously at 1 g until we arrive at our destination. It would take a day to get to Mars, a week and a half to Pluto, a year to the Oort Cloud, and a few years to the nearest stars.

It would be wryly interesting if in human history the cultivation of marijuana led generally to the invention of agriculture, and thereby to civilization.

In the deepest sense the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves.

But I try not to think with my gut. If I’m serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.

Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis-which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism-especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested-and you’re not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need.

Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns.

The method of science is tried and true. It is not perfect, it’s just the best we have. And to abandon it, with its skeptical protocols, is the pathway to a dark age.

We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.

Human beings grew up in forests; we have a natural affinity for them. How lovely a tree is, straining toward the sky.

If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you.

The Hindu religion is the only of the World’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths.

But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact.

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

If the constellations had been named in the twentieth century, I suppose we would see bicycles and refrigerators in the sky.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

A central lesson of science is that to understand complex issues (or even simple ones), we must try to free our minds of dogma and to guarantee the freedom to publish, to contradict, and to experiment. Arguments from authority are unacceptable.

Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.

The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

Science is not perfect. It’s often misused; it’s only a tool, but it’s the best tool we have. Self-correcting , ever changing, applicable to everything: with this tool, we vanquish the impossible.

If intelligence is our only edge, we must learn to use it better, to shape it, to understand its limitations and deficiencies — to use it as cats use stealth, as katydids use camouflage — to make it the tool of our survival.

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses.

We should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit.

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English – up to fifty words used in correct context – no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses.

If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then, we are up for grabs for the next charlatan (political or religious) who comes rambling along.

Looking at fires when high, by the way, especially through one of those prism kaleidoscopes which image their surroundings, is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful experience.

Our ancestors lived out of doors. They were as familiar with the night sky as most of us are with our favorite television programs.

The secrets of evolution are death and time-the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations.

Our perceptions are fallible. We sometimes see what isn’t there. We are prey to optical illusions. Occasionally we hallucinate. We are error-prone.

The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.

Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were not that foolish. It makes sense to revere the Sun and the stars, for we are their children.

When you make the finding yourself – even if you’re the last person on Earth to see the light – you’ll never forget it.

Those creatures who find everyday experience a muddled jumble of events with no predictability, no regularity, are in grave peril. The Universe belongs to those who, at least to some degree, have figured it out.

We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology.

it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars will know the value of a patch of green. And if a blade of grass is priceless, what is the value of a human being?

History is full of people who out of fear, or ignorance, or lust for power has destroyed knowledge of immeasurable value which truly belongs to us all. We must not let it happen again.

If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth.

Humans – who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals – have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain.

In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?

Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep seated need to believe

I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos in which we float, like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it.

There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s perfectly all right: it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process.

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

Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away.

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon, there’s a couple lying naked in bed reading Encyclopediea Brittannica to each other, and arguing about whether the Andromeda Galaxy is more ‘numinous’ than the Ressurection. Do they know how to have a good time, or don’t they?

There are in fact 100 billion galaxies, each of which contain something like a 100 billion stars. Think of how many stars, and planets, and kinds of life there may be in this vast and awesome universe.

The dumbing down of America is evident in the slow decay of substantive content, a kind of celebration of ignorance.

We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.

When Kepler found his long-cherished belief did not agree with the most precise observation, he accepted the uncomfortable fact. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions, that is the heart of science.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

We live on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam

The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.

The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.

There is perhaps no better a demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.

And in the final tolling it often turns out that the facts are more comforting than the fantasy.

Chlorine is a deadly poison gas employed on European battlefields in World War I. Sodium is a corrosive metal which burns upon contact with water. Together they make a placid and unpoisonous material, table salt. Why each of these substances has the properties it does is a subject called chemistry.

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking.

The lifetime of a human being is measured by decades, the lifetime of the Sun is a hundred million times longer. Compared to a star, we are like mayflies, fleeting ephemeral creatures who live out their lives in the course of a single day.

The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true.

That’s home. That’s us. It underscores the responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth and never mind the fallibility of all the human beings involved?

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.

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.

Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.

The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.

You have to know the past to understand the present.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

I don’t want to believe. I want to know.