"If we are not graced with an instinctive knowledge of how to make our technologized world a safe and balanced ecosystem, we must figure out how to do it. We need more scientific research and more technological restraint. It is probably too much to hope that some great Ecosystem Keeper in the sky will reach down and put right our environmental abuses. It is up to us. It should not be impossibly difficult. Birds—whose intelligence we tend to malign—know not to defile the nest. Shrimps with brains the size of lint particles know it. Algae know it. One-celled microorganisms know it. It is time for us to know it too."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Science fiction authors from the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesAcademics from the United StatesAgnostics from the United StatesScience authors from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chapter 7, “The World That Came in the Mail” (pp. 67-68)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"We live in a complex age where many of the problems we face can, whatever their origins, only have solutions that inv…"
"The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every s…"
"Imagine, a room, awash in gasoline. And there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has 9,000 matches.…"
"It is important to distinguish between the amount of information and the quality of that information."
"There is a place with four suns in the sky — red, white, blue, and yellow; two of them are so close together that the…"
"It is easy to create an interstellar radio message which can be recognized as emanating unambiguously from intelligen…"
"We live in a society absolutely dependent on science and technology and yet have cleverly arranged things so that alm…"
"It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny …"
"In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," a…"
"Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pre…"