There is a wide yawning black infinity. In every direction the extension is endless, the sensation of depth is overwhelming. And the darkness is immortal. Where light exists, it is pure, blazing, fierce; but light exists almost nowhere, and the blackness itself is also pure and blazing and fierce. But most of all, there is very nearly nothing in the dark; except for little bits here and there, often associated with the light, this infinite receptacle is empty.
This picture is strangely frightening. It should be familiar. It is our universe.
Even these stars, which seem so numerous, are, as sand, as dust, or less than dust, in the enormity of the space in which there is nothing. Nothing! We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s Pensées and read, “I am the great silent spaces between worlds.”
What’s so bad about attaching wonder and awe to basic physical facts? Isn’t emotion a driving factor of human motivation, Mr. Spock? Also, it is ladden with feel-good gravitas just by virtue of being a Sagan quote (let me demonstrate). I somewhat agree that it’s not a good fit as a rationality quote really, but meh … it’s not exactly noise either.
Carl Sagan
That seems like an attempt to attach emotional connotations to basic physical facts. A rationality quote..?
Feeling Rational.
(I didn’t upvote the quote, but I think that’s what Kawoomba was going for)
Carl Sagan