“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”

—  Carl Sagan , book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the…" by Carl Sagan?
Carl Sagan photo
Carl Sagan 365
American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science ed… 1934–1996

Related quotes

“Blood hardly defines one's character. We are made by our actions, not our blood. - Soren”

Kathryn Lasky (1944) American children's writer

Source: The Golden Tree

James A. Garfield photo
David Attenborough photo

“Right now we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Speech at the Katowice Climate Change Conference, "David Attenborough: collapse of civilisation is on the horizon" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/03/david-attenborough-collapse-civilisation-on-horizon-un-climate-summit, The Guardian, 3 December 2018.
Climate Change Conference 2018

Samuel Gompers photo

“We feel as if we were hard labor convicts where everything but our feeding has been made subject to iron rules. We have become lost as human beings, and have been turned into slaves.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

Out of Their Own Mouths: A Revelation and an Indictment of Sovietism, New York: NY, E.P Dutton and Company (1921) p. 84. Resolution from the Petrograd workers, (Sept. 5, 1920). Co-authored by William English Walling.

Carl Sagan photo

“We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose.”

53 min 54 sec
Source: We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to selfawareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.
Context: And we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos we've begun, at last, to wonder about our origins. Star stuff, contemplating the stars organized collections of 10 billion-billion-billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and perhaps, throughout the cosmos.

Francis Scott Key photo

“Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

Francis Scott Key (1779–1843) American lawyer and poet

A line in the final stanzas is comparable to "It made and preserves us a nation" in The Flag of our Union by George Pope Morris.
The Star-Spangled Banner (1814)
Context: O say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Alexis Karpouzos photo
Jean Baptiste Massillon photo

“In this life we never behold the true state of our interior”

Jean Baptiste Massillon (1663–1742) French Catholic bishop and famous preacher

On the Last Day
Context: In this life we never behold the true state of our interior: our attention is engaged by the few serious sentiments with which we are occasionally animated; and the judgment which we form of ourselves is generally influenced by the last impressions which are made upon our minds.

Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo

Related topics