Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Carl Sagan used this line in the context of defending imagination as an essential tool of science and discovery, not an escape from reality. In his public writing and lecturing, Sagan often argued that scientific progress depends on the ability to envision possibilities beyond current evidence—new worlds, hypotheses, and futures—while still returning to observation and reason to test them. The quote reflects that dual emphasis: imagination can lead us into purely speculative realms, but it is also the engine that propels inquiry, exploration, and creative problem‑solving. It aligns with Sagan’s broader project of making scientific thinking culturally valued and emotionally compelling.

The quote balances a warning and a defense. Imagination can transport us to “worlds that never were”—fantasies, errors, or ungrounded conjectures. Yet Sagan insists that without imagination we “go nowhere”: no new questions, no hypotheses, no conceptual leaps beyond the familiar. The significance lies in its implicit model of inquiry: creativity proposes possibilities; evidence and reason decide which survive. Read this way, the line is not an endorsement of wishful thinking but a claim that progress—scientific, artistic, or moral—requires the capacity to envision alternatives to the present reality before they can be pursued, tested, or built.