tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-219836196183200787.post2659720552796776421..comments2024-03-28T10:31:30.770-07:00Comments on "The Charbor Chronicles": Carl Sagan Quote on Future Proved Eerily on the Mark The Charbor Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16834960856531538870noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-219836196183200787.post-85145604506648855432017-01-31T00:46:54.785-08:002017-01-31T00:46:54.785-08:00Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-d...Human beings have a demonstrated talent for self-deception when their emotions are stirred.<br /><br /><br />The Charbor Chronicleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16834960856531538870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-219836196183200787.post-53360198530244936372017-01-31T00:44:44.342-08:002017-01-31T00:44:44.342-08:00“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary eviden...“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” <br />― Carl Sagan<br />tags: evidence, faith, science, skepticism 1046 likes Like<br />“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?” <br />― Carl Sagan<br />tags: agnosticism, humility, science, skepticism, truth 1013 likes Like<br />“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.” <br />― Carl Sagan<br />tags: politics, religion, science 906 likes Like<br />“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.” <br />― Carl Sagan<br />tags: imagination 879 likes Like<br />“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.” <br />― Carl Sagan, Contact<br />tags: vastness-people-love 872 likes Like<br />“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” <br />― Carl Sagan<br /><br />“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” <br />― Carl Sagan<br /><br /><br />“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” <br />― Carl Sagan<br /><br /><br />A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.<br />-Carl Sagan<br /><br /><br />And perhaps the most hopeful and helpful quote to remember by Carl Sagan given these times which we live in:<br /><br />This planet is run by crazy people. Remember what they have to do to get where they are. Their perspective is so narrow, so...brief. A few years. In the best of them a few decades. They care only about the time they are in power.<br />- Carl SaganThe Charbor Chronicleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16834960856531538870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-219836196183200787.post-28314992840273046402017-01-31T00:43:44.557-08:002017-01-31T00:43:44.557-08:00“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, pr...“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” <br />― Carl Sagan, Cosmos<br /><br /><br />Humans are good, she knew, at discerning subtle patterns that are really there, but equally so at imagining them when they are altogether absent.<br />- Carl Sagan<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.<br /><br />The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.<br /><br />Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.<br /><br />The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.<br /><br />It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” <br />― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space<br />tags: earth, perspective, space 3221 likes Like<br />“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” <br />― Carl Sagan, Cosmos<br />tags: humanity, individuality, love, mercy 2947 likes Like<br />“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.” <br />― Carl Sagan, Cosmos<br /><br />The Charbor Chronicleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16834960856531538870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-219836196183200787.post-37578597889141321372017-01-30T16:24:07.909-08:002017-01-30T16:24:07.909-08:00I wonder if Carl Sagan ever had bouts with despair...I wonder if Carl Sagan ever had bouts with despair. He always struck me as being far more intelligent (and wiser) than the vast majority of us, and I'd be curious to know how he felt about us as a species. Did he ever think to himself, "Humanity, for all of its brilliance and achievements, is a basket case. Things aren't going to haphazardly improve. If we haven't evolved more than this, if the human population continues to expand exponentially and if we continue to think in terms of 'conquering' nature as opposed to living in harmony with it, our long-term prospects aren't overly promising." Some Guy in Jerseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14060966365329157247noreply@blogger.com