# Contact - Author: [Carl Sagan](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan.md) - Quotes: 26 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact ## Quotes > Anything you don't understand, Mr. Rankin, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intelligence. You simply turn your mind off and say God did it. p. 166 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/anything-you-dont.md) > The major religions on the Earth contradict each other left and right. You can't all be correct. And what if all of you are wrong? It's a possibility, you know. You must care about the truth, right? Well, the way to winnow through all the differing contentions is to be skeptical. I'm not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. But in my line of work, they're called hypotheses, not inspiration and not revelation. p. 162 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/the-major-religions.md) > Do we, holding that the gods exist, > > deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams > > and lies, while random careless chance and > > change alone control the world? p. 157 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/do-we-holding.md) > In Mozambique, the story goes, monkeys do not talk, because they know if they utter even a single word some man will come and put them to work. p. 313 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/in-mozambique-the.md) > You see, the religious people — most of them — really think this planet is an experiment. That's what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesmen's wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can't say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Why can't the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence. If God didn't want Lot's wife to look back, why didn't he make her obedient, so she'd do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn't made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would've listened to him more. 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. p. 285 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/you-see-the.md) > Jingoistic rhetoric and puerile self-congratulatory nationalism. p. 181 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/jingoistic-rhetoric-and.md) > A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism. p. 244 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/a-celibate-clergy.md) > She too had found the experience transforming. How could she not? A demon had been exorcised. Several. And just when she felt more capable of love than she had ever been, she found herself alone. p. 407 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/she-too-had.md) > What I'm saying is, if God wanted to send us a message, and ancient writings were the only way he could think of doing it, he could have done a better job. p. 164 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/what-im-saying.md) > The chiliasts made an atheist out of me. p. 258 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/the-chiliasts-made.md) > Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer; there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness. p. 231 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/skepticism-is-the.md) > If the press descended, the science would surely suffer. p. 75 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/if-the-press.md) > Many harebrained interpretations were also widely available, especially in weekly newspapers. p. 216 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/many-harebrained-interpretations.md) > Humans are very good at dreaming, although you'd never know it from your television. p. 359 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/humans-are-very.md) > “Do you understand what’s going on?” > > “Not at all,” he shouted back. “I can almost prove this can’t be happening.” p. 330 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/do-you-understand.md) > In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always. It's their nature. They can't help it. p. 359 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/in-the-long.md) > The universe was made on purpose, the circle said. In whatever galaxy you happen to find yourself, you take the circumference of a circle, divide it by its diameter, measure closely enough, and uncover a miracle — another circle, drawn kilometers downstream of the decimal point. There would be richer messages farther in. It doesn't matter what you look like, or what you're made of, or where you come from. As long as you live in this universe, and have a modest talent for mathematics, sooner or later you'll find it. It's already here. It's inside everything. You don't have to leave your planet to find it. In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist's signature. Standing over humans, gods, and demons, subsuming Caretakers and Tunnel builders, there is an intelligence that antedates the universe. p. 431 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/the-universe-was.md) > It's hard to kill a creature once it lets you see its consciousness. p. 147 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/its-hard-to-kill.md) > “Let’s see if I’ve got this straight,” he returned. It was a phrase of hers that he had adopted “It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon, and there’s this couple lying naked in bed reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica to each other, and arguing about whether the Andromeda Galaxy is more ‘numinous’ than the Resurrection. Do they know how to have a good time or don't they?" p. 154 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/lets-see-if-ive.md) > 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. p. 403 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/this-planet-is-run.md) > For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. p. 430 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/for-small-creatures.md) > That it will never come again > > Is what makes life so sweet. p. 393 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/that-it-will.md) > I wish to propose a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. I must, of course, admit that if such an opinion became common it would completely transform our social life and our political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it. p. 15 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/i-wish-to-propose.md) > We could not guess how different from us they (extraterrestrials) might be. It was hard enough to guess the intentions of our elected representatives in Washington. p. 48 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/we-could-not.md) > If we like them, they're freedom fighters, she thought. If we don't like them, they're terrorists. In the unlikely case we can't make up our minds, they're temporarily only guerrillas. p. 55 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/if-we-like.md) > Humans are good, she knew, at discerning subtle patterns that are really there, but equally so at imagining them when they are altogether absent. p. 44 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/carl-sagan/contact/humans-are-good.md)