“If we are alone in the Universe, it sure seems like an awful waste of space.”
The quote "If we are alone in the Universe, it sure seems like an awful waste of space." is famous quote by Carl Sagan (1934–1996), American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator.
This is a paraphrase of Sagan quoting Thomas Carlyle: "A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space."
Sagan delivered this quote during the symposium on "Life Beyond Earth and the Mind of Man", held at Boston University (20 November 1972), published in Life Beyond Earth and the Mind of Man (1973) edited by Richard Berendzen; Life Beyond Earth and the Mind of Man (1975) National Archives video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQeOp7a8QMI
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Carl Sagan 365
American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science ed… 1934–1996Related quotes

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough.”
Non exiguum temporis habemus, sed multum perdidimus. Satis longa vita.
De Brevitate Vitae ("On the Shortness of Life", trans. John W. Basore), Ch. 1
Moral Essays

“The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.”
The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Variant: "No life is a waste," the Blue Man said. "The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone."
Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Meniti Bianglala

Source: A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)