Perhaps if one less dragonfly had drowned in the Carboniferous swamps, the intelligent organisms on our planet today would have feathers and teach their young in rookeries. The pattern of evolutionary causality is a web of astonishing complexity; the incompleteness of our understanding humbles us.

Carl Sagan
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  1. Folks, it's time to evolve. That's why we're troubled. You know why our institutions are failing us, the church, the state, everything's failing? It's because, um — they're no longer relevant. We're supposed to keep evolving. Evolution did not end with us growing opposable thumbs.... - Bill Hicks

  2. Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere in the universe that creation came to an end with the birth of man? Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere out there that man was the climax toward which creation had been straining from the beginning?. .Very... - Daniel Quinn

  3. The fossil record implies trial and error, the inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with a Great Designer (though not a Designer of a more remote and indirect temperament.) - Carl Sagan

  4. A hydrogen atom in a cell at the end of my nose was once part of an elephant's trunk. A carbon atom in my cardiac muscle was once in the tail of a dinosaur. - Jostein Gaarder

  5. ТреÑ‚ье великое препяÑ‚сÑ‚вие человеческого самопознания – по крайней мере в нашей западной кульÑ‚уре – эÑ‚о наследие идеалисÑ‚ической философии. Она делиÑ‚ мир на две часÑ‚и: мир вещей, коÑ‚орÑ‹й идеалисÑ‚ическое мÑ‹шление счиÑ‚аеÑ‚ в принципе индифференÑ‚нÑ‹м в оÑ‚ношении ценносÑ‚ей, и мир человеческого внуÑ‚реннего закона, коÑ‚орÑ‹й один лишь заслуживаеÑ‚... - Konrad Lorenz

More Quotes By Carl Sagan
  1. 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.

  2. The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.

  3. The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a...

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

  5. We are star stuff harvesting sunlight.

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