The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.
In plain words
What makes something beautiful is how all its tiny parts fit together.
Where these words come from
- 85% sureThese words were traced back to where they first appeared. That source is listed below.
- Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Episode 5 'Blues for a Red Planet' (1980; 1990 update), timestamp ~44:50, per Wikiquote's sourced section.
- Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Episode 5
- 1980 · television broadcast · Cosmos TV series narration
More from Carl Sagan
See allThe cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff.
Carl SaganScience is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.Carl SaganFor small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.Carl SaganExtraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.Carl SaganWe are ready at last to set sail for the stars.Carl SaganImagination will often carry us to worlds that never were.Carl Sagan
Carl SaganScience is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.Carl SaganFor small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.Carl SaganExtraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.Carl SaganWe are ready at last to set sail for the stars.Carl SaganImagination will often carry us to worlds that never were.Carl SaganMore on nature
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Lao TzuClouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.
Rabindranath TagoreThe creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
Ralph Waldo EmersonAll art is but imitation of nature.
SenecaA violent wind does not outlast the morning; a squall of rain does not outlast the day. Such is the course of Nature.Lao TzuIn wildness is the preservation of the world.
Henry David Thoreau
Lao TzuClouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.Rabindranath TagoreThe creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.Ralph Waldo EmersonAll art is but imitation of nature.SenecaA violent wind does not outlast the morning; a squall of rain does not outlast the day. Such is the course of Nature.Lao TzuIn wildness is the preservation of the world.Henry David Thoreau