“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”//quotes by carl sagan

{{{Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, author, cosmologist, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated skeptical inquiry and the scientific method. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Sagan became world-famous for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote.[2] A book to accompany the program was also published. Sagan also wrote the novel, Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name.}}}

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

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

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think its forever.”

“We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow biological evolution. There is no reason to think that the evolutionary process has stopped. Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation.”

The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity

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.

The question [Do you believe in God?] has a peculiar structure. If I say no, do I mean I'm convinced God doesn't exist, or do I mean I'm not convinced he does exist? Those are two very different questions.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.