You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true.
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
I don't want to believe. I want to know.
We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
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 height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
In all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.
The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns.
If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands.
We make our purpose.
Perhaps, in retrospect, there would be little motivation even for malevolent extraterrestrials to attack the Earth; perhaps, after a preliminary survey, they might decide it is more expedient just to be patient for a little while and wait for us to self-destruct.
We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.
You are made of a hundred trillion cells. We are, each of us, a multitude.
I think the discomfort that some people feel in going to the monkey cages at the zoo is a warning sign.
If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
Nearly everyone in ancient Egypt exhorted the gods to let the Pharaoh live ’forever. These collective prayers failed. Their failure constitutes data.
The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer.