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One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.
Carl Sagan
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote emphasizes how reading allows us to connect with thoughts and ideas from the past.

Carl Sagan highlights the profound impact of reading, suggesting that through literature, we can connect with individuals from the past, experiencing their thoughts and philosophies long after their lives have ended. This ability to transcend time emphasizes the power of books as vessels of knowledge and voices of humanity, allowing us to journey through history and gain insights from those who have come before us.

Themes

ReadingBooksTimeKnowledgeHistory

In practice

Example use cases

Use this quote in a speech about the importance of literacy in education.

More from Carl Sagan

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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.
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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.
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The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.
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