n every culture, the sky and the religious impulse are intertwined. I lie back in an open field and the sky surrounds me. Im overpowered by its scale. Its so vast and so far away that my own insignificance becomes palpable. But I dont feel rejected by the sky. Im a part of it - tiny, to be sure, but everything is tiny compared to that overwhelming immensity. And when I concentrate in the stars, the planets, and their motions, I have an irresistible sense of machinery, clockwork, elegant precision working on a scale that, however lofty out aspirations, dwarfs and humbles us.
About This Quote
About Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan was a 20th-century American scientist and science communicator. Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. Initially an assistant professor at Harvard, Sagan later moved to Cornell, where he was the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. Read more on Wikipedia →