Contact

by Carl Sagan

Hiding between all the ordinary numbers was an infinity of transcendental numbers whose presence you would never have guessed unless you looked deeply into mathematics.

The stars were comforting. They seemed to demonstrate that the heavens were created for the benefit and instruction of humans. This pathetic conceit became the conventional wisdom worldwide. No culture was free of it.

every religion there was a doctrinal line beyond which it insulted the intelligence of its practitioners.

“Maybe we haven’t explained the methods of science as well as we should have. I worry about that a lot these days.

“Look, we all have a thirst for wonder. It’s a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I’m saying is, you don’t have to make stories up, you don’t have to exaggerate. There’s wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature’s a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.”

‘The artifacts of a sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial civilization would be indistinguishable from magic.’

There are huge advertising budgets only when there’s no difference between the products. If the products really were different, people would buy the one that’s better.

Your religion assumes that people are children and need a boogeyman so they’ll behave. You want people to believe in God so they’ll obey the law.

When you really believe that people can be adults, you’ll preach a different sermon.”

What is there in the precepts of science that keeps a scientist from doing evil?”

If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn’t he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why’s he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there’s one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He’s not good at design, he’s not good at execution. He’d be out of business if there was any competition.

the civilizations with only short-term perspectives just aren’t around.

“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.”

Any faith that admires truth, that strives to know God, must be brave enough to accommodate the universe. I mean the real universe. All those light-years. All those worlds. I think of the scope of your universe, the opportunities it affords the Creator, and it takes my breath away.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.