QuoteProject
We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal's 'Pensees' and read, 'I am the great silent spaces between worlds.'
Carl Sagan
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects the profound connection between existence and the vast, often unarticulated experiences of life.

Carl Sagan's reference to Pascal's quote highlights the awe and terror we may feel when contemplating the vast silence of the universe and our place within it. The 'great silent spaces between worlds' suggests that there is much about existence that remains unspoken and unknown, evoking both a sense of wonder and existential dread.

Themes

ExistenceUniverseSilenceConnectionAwe

In practice

Example use cases

Discussing the mysteries of life in a philosophy class.

More from Carl Sagan

Science is a way to not fool ourselves.
Carl SaganRead
In more than one respect, the exploring of the Solar System and homesteading other worlds constitutes the beginning, much more than the end, of history.
Carl SaganRead
How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?
Carl SaganRead
The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting. At first it seemed to spell out our continuing complacency before a witch's brew of deadly perils. But perhaps it really tells of a newfound talent to work together to protect the global environment.
Carl SaganRead
There is a reward structure in science that is very interesting: Our highest honors go to those who disprove the findings of the most revered among us. So Einstein is revered not just because he made so many fundamental contributions to science, but because he found an imperfection in the fundamental contribution of Isaac Newton.
Carl SaganRead
The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
Carl SaganRead

Similar quotes

Contemporary man is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by "powers" that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food - and, above all, a large array of neuroses
Carl JungRead
I'm not much but I'm all I have.
Philip K. DickRead
I still think that maybe the "afterlife" is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe we are just matter, and matter gets recycled
John GreenRead
I'm a strict, strict agnostic. It's very different from a casual, 'I don't know.' It's that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can't present it as fact.
Margaret AtwoodRead
Labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionately brutalized.
Nathaniel HawthorneRead
I'm doing philosophy like an old woman, first I'm looking for my pencil, then I'm looking for my glasses, then I'm looking for my pencil again.
Ludwig WittgensteinRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.