Can you identify this from Carl Sagan?
April 7, 2013 5:17 PM   Subscribe

Years ago (years!) I recall a TV show with Carl Sagan wherein he was standing in a library and made the point that if he read x books per week for x number of years then he would have read a small fraction of the books that have ever been written. His point was that even a well-read person can only ingest a fraction of what is out there. I've always like that quote and would like to find this scene on YouTube or another site... Anyone?
posted by gilast to Writing & Language (3 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Is this the clip? From episode 11 of Cosmos.
posted by 1UP at 5:31 PM on April 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


"If I were to read a book a week for my entire adult lifetime and I lived an ordinary lifetime, when I was all done, I would have read maybe a few thousand books, no more. In this library, that's from about here... [walks] ... roughly to about here. That's only a tenth of a percent or so of the total number of books in the library. The trick is to know which books to read. But they're all here."

Roughly 0:50 to 1:38 in this clip.
posted by stebulus at 5:35 PM on April 7, 2013 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Wow -- thanks 1UP and stebulus! We have a winner! I am impressed with how fast you answered! Incredible. This is indeed the clip I had in mind! You two have made my day!
posted by gilast at 5:49 PM on April 7, 2013


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