Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we devised … - Carl Sagan

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I love the idea of playing something stupid or romantic. I'm not the smartest man in the room. I listen, and I learn, and I observe, but I'm always playing characters with intellects profoundly superior to mine. That's great fun, even though it's as much a fantasy for me as for the people watching me.

Carl Sagan

Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we devised artificial lights and atmospheric pollution and modern forms of nocturnal entertainment we watched the stars. There were practical calendar reasons of course but there was more to it than that. Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away.

Away, Night, Pollution, Stars, Twinkling, Years

Same Author Quotes

The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.

Disservice, Doe, Exclusive, Mutually, Science, Spirituality

The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with the magnificence of the Cosmos.

Celebration, Cosmos, Joining, Merging, Understanding

Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs — in time, in space, and in potential — the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors.

Awesome, Overcoming, Space, Threshold, Tiny, Utterly

An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.

Atheist, Doubt, Evidence, Inspire, Know, Times

We were wanderers from the beginning.

Beginning, Wanderers