Astronomy Quotes - Page 2

• Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

  Voltaire

  Wise, Daughter, Mother

  Voltaire (1989). “Voltaire: selections”, MacMillan Publishing Company

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• You will certainly not doubt the necessity of studying astronomy and physics, if you are desirous of comprehending the relation between the world and Providence as it is in reality, and not according to imagination.

  Maimonides

  Reality, Astrology, Imagination

  Moses Maimonides (2016). “Guide for the perplexed”, p.297, Moses Maimonides

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• Similarly, many a young man, hearing for the first time of the refraction of stellar light, has thought that doubt was cast on the whole of astronomy, whereas nothing is required but an easily effected and unimportant correction to put everything right again.

  Ernst Mach

  Men, Light, Doubt

  Ernst Mach (1959). “The Analysis of Sensations: And the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical”

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• In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

  Galileo Galilei

  Truth, Inspiration, Independent

  "Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men". Book by François Arago, as translated by Baden Powell, Robert Grant, and William Fairbairn, p. 365, 1859.

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• When the Sun shrinks to a dull red dwarf, it will not be dying. It will just be starting to live and everything that has gone before will merely be a prelude to its real history.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Real, Dwarves, Dying

  Arthur C. Clarke (2011). “Voices from the Sky”, p.32, Hachette UK

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• Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the system of procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, "with eyes wide open."

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Eye, Events, Faces

  "The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought". Book by Thomas S. Kuhn, 1957.

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• Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night.

  Henry Beston

  Night, Civilization, Fantastic

  Henry Beston, Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth (2001). “The Best of Beston: A Selection from the Natural World of Henry Beston from Cape Cod to the St. Lawrence”, p.28, David R. Godine Publisher

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• Let no one expect anything of certainty from astronomy, lest if anyone take as true that which has been constructed for another use, he go away... a bigger fool than when he came to it.

  Bill Vaughan

  Going Away, Use, Fool

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• Here I was into astronomy, and here into anthropology, and there I go into geology. It was much more fun to be able to research and write about whatever I wanted to.

  Octavia Butler

  Fun, Writing, Research

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• Most people today still believe, perhaps unconsciously, in the heliocentric universe. Every newspaper in the land has a section on astrology, yet few have anything at all on astronomy.

  Hannes Alfven

  Believe, Land, Astrology

  "Hannes Alfvén: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents". Book by Anthony L. Peratt, p. 196, 1998.

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• Lie on your back and look at the stars.

  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  Stars, Lying, Small Joys

  H. Jackson Brown Jr., Rochelle Pennington (2001). “Highlighted in Yellow: A Short Course In Living Wisely And Choosing Well”, p.95, Harper Collins

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• The great spirals, with their enormous radial velocities and insensible proper motions, apparently lie outside our Solar system.

  Edwin Powell Hubble

  Lying, Velocity, Spirals

  Edwin Powell Hubble (1920). “Photographic Investigations of Faint Nebulae ...”

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• I turned my attention for a while to gamma ray astronomy and soon began the first in a continous series of experiments at the Savannah River site to study the properties of the neutrino.

  Frederick Reines

  Rivers, Rays, Attention

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• If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

  Carl Sagan

  Inspirational, Nature, Hipster

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.242, Ballantine Books

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• The sun rejoicing round the earth, announced
  Daily the wisdom, power and love of God.
  The moon awoke, and from her maiden face,
  Shedding her cloudy locks, looked meekly forth,
  And with her virgin stars walked in the heavens--
  Walked nightly there, conversing as she walked,
  Of purity, and holiness, and God.

  Robert Pollok

  Stars, Moon, Heaven

  Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans, Reginald Heber, Robert Pollok (1831). “The poetical works of Hemans, Heber and Pollok”

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• It is surrounded by a thin flat ring, inclined to the ecliptic, and nowhere touches the body of the planet.

  Christiaan Huygens

  Body, Planets, Flats

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• Cosmology does, I think, affect the way that we perceive humanity's role in nature. One thing we've learnt from astronomy is that the future lying ahead is more prolonged than the past. Even our sun is less than halfway through its life.

  Martin Rees

  Lying, Past, Thinking

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• As the twentieth century began, science equaled a materialistic worldview. As the twenty-first century began, the worldview of science, at least of physics and astronomy, may have traded place with that of religion. Consider Einstein's famous equation E = mc2. Nothing of matter dies but continues on in another form, elsewhere. The church divines and theologians for two thousand years have devised arguments and "proofs" of immortality but nothing equal to this.

  Huston Smith

  Years, Two, Religion

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• Scientific truth is too beautiful to be sacrificed for the sake of light entertainment or money. Astrology is an aesthetic affront. It cheapens astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles.

  Richard Dawkins

  Beautiful, Astrology, Light

  "The Real Romance in the Stars". www.independent.co.uk. December 31, 1995.

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• So if the worth of the arts were measured by the matter with which they deal, this art-which some call astronomy, others astrology, and many of the ancients the consummation of mathematics-would be by far the most outstanding. This art which is as it were the head of all the liberal arts and the one most worthy of a free man leans upon nearly all the other branches of mathe matics. Arithmetic, geometry, optics, geodesy, mechanics, and whatever others, all offer themselves in its service.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Art, Men, Astrology

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• When man, Apollo man, rockets into space, it isn't in order to find his brother, I'm quite sure of that. It's to confirm that he hasn't any brothers.

  Francoise Sagan

  Brother, Men, Order

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• A time will come when men will stretch out their eyes. They should see planets like our Earth

  Christopher Wren

  Clever, Future, Eye

  "If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens-- where is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life". Book by Stephen Webb, p. 150, quoting "Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Astronomy, Gresham College", 2002.

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• I try to forget what happiness was, and when that don't work, I study the stars.

  Derek Walcott

  Stars, Trying, Study

  Derek Walcott (2014). “The Star-Apple Kingdom”, p.18, Macmillan

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• If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Inspirational, Funny

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• Since I have introduced this term I had always a bad conscience. . . . I cannot help to feel it strongly and I am unable to believe that such an ugly thing should be realized in nature.

  Albert Einstein

  Believe, Ugly Things, Helping

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