Quotation
Last reviewed:
“The cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”
Carl Sagan · Thinkers beyond philosophy · Modern · 1980
What does it mean?
The materials of a person were cooked in stars, so the cosmos is not only a view. It is what we are made of, and in us it has a way of looking back. The usual reading is a claim about origin and about knowledge: matter, organised, comes to know. A competing reading hears a mystical comfort, as if the sentence made death optional or the universe benevolent. He is talking about elements and about curiosity. The lines are episode 1 of Cosmos. Star-stuff is the composition. Know itself is the part people turn into a creed. It is a description of science-bearing animals, not a promise.
Did Carl Sagan really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. His narration in episode 1 of the 1980 television series Cosmos, which he wrote with Ann Druyan and Steven Soter. The book prints related lines about the elements in our bodies being made in stars. This wording is the episode.
Where it comes from
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980), episode 1, The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean
Approximate date: 1980.
How to use it
On a clear night in the Pennines the sentence is a better companion than a horoscope, and a worse one than a coat. It does not tell you what to do on Monday. It tells you what a body is made of, which is enough to shrink a certain kind of loneliness without inventing a plan for you.
A mindset reading
Wonder is allowed, and it is not evidence for a further doctrine you wanted anyway. He kept a kit for that move. This card is the wonder. The kit is chapter 12 of the later book.
Understand the philosophy
Episode 1 of Cosmos, 1980. The key phrase is star-stuff. The apple-pie line in episode 9 is the comic cousin. Pale Blue Dot, fourteen years later, is the humility about the planet, not a repeat of this narration. Ann Druyan and Steven Soter share the credit for the series. The voice is his.
- meaning
- knowledge
- self
FAQ
What does it mean?
The materials of a person were cooked in stars, so the cosmos is not only a view. It is what we are made of, and in us it has a way of looking back. The usual reading is a claim about origin and about knowledge: matter, organised, comes to know. A competing reading hears a mystical comfort, as if the sentence made death optional or the universe benevolent. He is talking about elements and about curiosity. The lines are episode 1 of Cosmos. Star-stuff is the composition. Know itself is the part people turn into a creed. It is a description of science-bearing animals, not a promise.
Did Carl Sagan really say this?
Well attested. His narration in episode 1 of the 1980 television series Cosmos, which he wrote with Ann Druyan and Steven Soter. The book prints related lines about the elements in our bodies being made in stars. This wording is the episode.
Which work is it in?
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980), episode 1, The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean Approximate date: 1980.