“Many religions have attempted to make statues of their gods very large, and the idea, I suppose, is to make us feel small. But if that's their purpose, they can keep their paltry icons. We need only look up if we wish to feel small.”

—  Carl Sagan

Source: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (2006)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Many religions have attempted to make statues of their gods very large, and the idea, I suppose, is to make us feel sma…" by Carl Sagan?
Carl Sagan photo
Carl Sagan 365
American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science ed… 1934–1996

Related quotes

E.M. Forster photo

“To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

"A Book That Influenced Me"
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Stig Dagerman photo

“The only current happiness is indifference, the only current feelings are the very small ones, the only current thoughts are smaller still. The only beautiful things are small feelings. Commons sense is never beautiful. People can never understand that the only thing which makes the small dogs' position at all bearable is that the big dogs' reason can analyse it.”

Stig Dagerman book A Burnt Child

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 258

Swami Vivekananda photo

“The essential thing in religion is making the heart pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the world is God, and we shall have God.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

Teal Swan photo

“We have a conditional relationship with the truth. We only want truth if it makes us feel more stable. We only want truth if it makes us feel more in control. We only want truth if it makes us feel good. And this conditional relationship that we have with the truth will be our downfall.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher
Don Soderquist photo

“Whether your organization is a large corporate entity or a small business with only a few employees, a winning team is born the day leaders purpose to make people feel that they are significant an that their work has value by treating them with dignity and respect.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 54.
On Creating Teamwork

“We as a society have become very independent, and we have become proficient in so many things, I think some of us feel we don't have that reliance on God as much as it was once felt. But the fact is we need (God) more than ever.”

Anthony F. Tonnos (1935) Canadian Catholic bishop

Bishop Tonnos retires after almost three decades of service https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/2010/11/08/bishop-tonnos-retires-after-almost-three-decades-of-service.html (November 8, 2010)

Ai Weiwei photo

“I feel powerless all the time, but I regain my energy by making a very small difference that won’t cost me much.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Life’s Work: Ai Weiwei, 2012

Robin S. Sharma photo

“Big people don't make people feel small.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer
Paulo Coelho photo

“In the beginning there was only a small amount of injustice abroad in the world, but everyone who came afterwards added their portion, always thinking it was very small and unimportant, and look where we have ended up today.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“We at once feel that cruelty to him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from our own humanity…”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: Of course man is useful to man, because his body is a marvellous machine and his mind an organ of wonderful efficiency. But he is a spirit as well, and this spirit is truly known only by love. When we define a man by the market value of the service we can expect of him, we know him imperfectly. With this limited knowledge of him it becomes easy for us to be unjust to him and to entertain feelings of triumphant self-congratulation when, on account of some cruel advantage on our side, we can get out of him much more than we have paid for. But when we know him as a spirit we know him as our own. We at once feel that cruelty to him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from our own humanity...

Related topics