“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”

“As the area of our knowledge grows, so too does the perimeter of our ignorance.”

“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.”

“Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds tha...”

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

“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.”

“In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch with Annie. [Dedication to Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan, in Cosmos]”

“The reappearance of the crescent moon after the new moon; 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...”