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We have loved the stars too fondly to be
fearful of the night.
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-Tombstone epitaph of two amateur astronomers
Qtd. in Carl Sagan
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter VIII, "Travels in Time and Space"
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Looking at the stars always makes me dream,
as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages
on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as
accessible as the lack dots on the map of France?
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-Vincent van Gogh
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*Our own race is spreading
out to the stars. We shall find---we are finding---that we are
vastly outnumbered.
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-Lorenzo Smythe, the hero in Robert Heinlein's
Double Star, 1956
Chapter 6
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~I admit that the
generation which produced Stalin, Auschwitz and Hiroshima will take
some beating; but the radical and universal consciousness of the death of
God is still ahead of us; perhaps we shall have to colonize the stars before
it is finally borne in upon us that God is not out there.
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-R. J. Hollingdale
Thomas Mann: A Critical Study, 1971
Chapter 8
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To what purpose should I trouble myself in
searching out the secrets of the stars, having death or slavery continually
before my eyes?
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-A question put to Pythagoras by
Anaximenes (c. 600 BC), according to Montaigne
Qtd. in Carl Sagan's
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter XIII, "Who Speaks For Earth?"
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Better not take a dog on the space shuttle,
because if he sticks his head out when you're coming home, his face might
burn up.
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-"Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey"
Saturday Night Live
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*The surface of the
Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of
what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to
dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting.
The ocean calls.
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-Carl Sagan
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter I, "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean"
(cf. ISLANDS : Islands of Knowledge)
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*On some [planets],
intelligent life may have evolved, reworking the planetary surface in
some massive engineering enterprise. These are our brothers and sisters
in the Cosmos. Are they very different from us? What is their form,
biochemistry, neurobiology, history, politics, science, technology, art,
music, religion, philosophy? Perhaps one day we will know them.
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-Carl Sagan
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter I, "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean"
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*Hidden within every
astronomical investigation, sometimes so deeply buried that the researcher
himself is unaware of its presence, lies a kernal of awe.
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-Carl Sagan
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter IX, "The Lives of the Stars"
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*The study of the
galaxies reveals a universal order and beauty. It also shows us chaotic
violence on a scale hitherto undreamed of. That we live in a universe
which permits life is remarkable. That we live in one which destroys
galaxies and stars and worlds is also remarkable. The universe seems
neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent to the concerns of such
puny creatures as we.
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-Carl Sagan
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter IX, "The Edge of Forever"
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*If we survive, our time
will be famous for two reasons: that at this dangerous moment of
technological adolescence we managed to avoid self-destruction; and because
this is the epoch in which we began our journey to the stars.
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-Carl Sagan
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter XIII, "Who Speaks For Earth?"
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*Something in us
recognizes the Cosmos as home. We are made of stellar ash. Our origin
and evolution have been tied to distant cosmic events. The exploration
of the Cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.
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-Carl Sagan
Cosmos, 1980
Chapter XIII, "Who Speaks For Earth?"
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