Carl Sagan Quotes

Quotes by and about Carl Sagan

(Continued from his main entry on the site.)

Sagan: "The popularization of science that Isaac Asimov did so well - the communication not just of the findings but of the methods of science - seems to me as natural as breathing."

Sagan: "[We should not] value short-term advantages [but] think on longer time scales."

Sagan: "The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before."

Keay Davidson: "[Sagan] had titanic goals and he fully intended to achieve them."

Gentry Lee: "Sagan never really showed vulnerability."

Ronald Blum: "He was a brilliant, far-ranging intellect with uncommon literary gifts who often seemed curiously immature and totally self-centered."

Donald Menzel: "[Sagan] has impressive ambition and breadth of knowledge."

Ronald Blum: "He was slightly detached. ... He was autonomous, self-sufficient."

Ronald Blum: "He felt it was a requirement of his intellectual commitment to be rigidly honest [and] very intolerant of anything irrational."

Keay Davidson: "[Sagan] had titanic goals and he fully intended to achieve them."

[His first wife:] "He never listened to anything on any kind of emotional level. ... He was ... untouched and untouchable."

[His second wife:] "[If you knew him] it was clear how emotional his 'logic' or erudition was."

Jim Cornell: "He appeared to adress you, not as an individual, but as a member of the public."

Gentry Lee: "[Sagan] would go into what we called his 'Delphic Oracle' mode [where] he'd seem to be saying, 'O hear me, you of little ability.' When Carl was in his Delphic oracle mode, he knew everything about everything."