Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a pr... - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

"Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves."

"The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is nonconstructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status."

"You squeeze the eyedropper, and a drop of pond water drips out onto the microscope stage. You look at the projected image. The drop is full of life - strange beings swimming, crawling, tumbling; high dramas of pursuit and escape, triumph and tragedy. This is a world populated by beings far more exotic than in any science fiction movie..."

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

"There is much that science doesn't understand, many mysteries still to be resolved. In a Universe tens of billions of light-years across and some ten or fifteen billion years old, this may be the case forever. We are constantly stumbling on new surprises"