Astronomy Quotes - Page 3

• Astronomy taught us our insignificance in Nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Teaching, Science

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.421, Penguin

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• When all thermonuclear sources of energy are exhausted a sufficiently heavy star will collapse. Unless fission due to rotation, the radiation of mass, or the blowing off of mass by radiation, reduce the star's mass to the order of that of the sun, this contraction will continue indefinitely.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Stars, Order, Energy

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• Astronomy is written for astronomers

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Astronomers, Written

  Nicolaus Copernicus (1978). “On the revolutions”

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• Since man, fragment of the universe, is governed by the same laws that preside over the heavens, it is by no means absurd to search there above for the themes of our lives, for those frigid sympathies that participate in our achievements as well as our blunderings.

  Marguerite Yourcenar

  Mean, Men, Law

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• In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Country, Night, Light

  "A Writer's Notebook" by W. Somerset Maugham, Country Life Press, (p. 48), 1949.

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• The Mars Polar Lander has been quieter than George W. Bush after a foreign policy question.

  David Letterman

  Mars, Foreign Policy, Has Beens

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• The destruction of this planet would have no significance on a cosmic scale: to an observer in the Andromeda nebula, the sign of our extinction would be no more than a match flaring for a second in the heavens: and if that match does blaze in the darkness there will be none to mourn a race that used a power that could have lit a beacon in the stars to light its funeral pyre. The choice is ours.

  Stanley Kubrick

  Stars, Light, Race

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• In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were given to the planets as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era, it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method, and call on Juno, Pallas, Apollo, or Minerva for a name to out new heavenly body. . . . I cannot but wish to take this opportunity of expressing my sense of gratitude, by giving the name Georgium Sidus, to a star [Uranus], by which (with to respect to us) first began to shine under His auspicious reign.

  William Herschel

  Gratitude, Stars, Hero

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• Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.

  Rebecca West

  Funny, Military, Real

  Quoted in Jonathon Green, Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982)

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• At night the sky is pure astronomy.

  Nicole Krauss

  Night, Sky, Pure

  Nicole Krauss (2003). “Man Walks Into a Room”, p.11, Anchor

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• Astronomy teaches the correct use of the sun and the planets.

  Stephen Leacock

  Use, Sun, Economy

  1910 Literary Lapses,'A Manual of Education'.

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• I love biomedical science, I love astronomy, and you can't really do much with those in a fantasy setting.

  Elizabeth Moon

  Fog, Fantasy, Biomedical

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• Astronomy is not the apex of science or of invention. But it is a test of the cast of temperament and mind that underlies a culture.

  Jacob Bronowski

  Mind, Culture, Tests

  Jacob Bronowski (1976). “The ascent of man”

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• My amateur interest in astronomy brought out the term "magnitude," which is used for the brightness of a star.

  Charles Richet

  Stars, Science, Nomenclature

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• I'm interested in astrology and astronomy.

  Emm Gryner

  Astrology

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• In 1959 the University recognized our work by appointing me to a new Chair of Radio Astronomy.

  Martin Ryle

  Radio, Chairs, University

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• I went to the University of Washington as a physics and astronomy major. My other interest, of course, was aviation. I always wanted to be a pilot. And if you're going to fly airplanes, the best place to be is the Air Force.

  Michael P. Anderson

  Airplane, Pilots, Air Force

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• The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Science, Mystery, Wonder

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• My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night-- Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about The other four in wondrous motion.

  William Shakespeare

  Moon, Night, Four

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Histories of Shakespeare in Plain and Simple English (a Modern Translation and the Original Version)”, p.117, BookCaps Study Guides

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• Astronomy's much more fun when you're not an astronomer

  Brian May

  Fun, Astronomers

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• What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

  Carl Sagan

  Believe, Two, Sound

  "Cosmos/ Encyclopaedia Galactica". Documentary, www.imdb.com. 1980.

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• The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.

  Edwin Powell Hubble

  History, Horizon, Hubble Space Telescope

  Edwin Powell Hubble (1936). “The Realm of the Nebulæ”

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• Science Fiction is not just about the future of space ships travelling to other planets, it is fiction based on science and I am using science as my basis for my fiction, but it's the science of prehistory - palaeontology and archaeology - rather than astronomy or physics.

  Jean M. Auel

  Journey, Space, Ships

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• When thou cam'st first, Thou strok'st me and made much of me; wouldst give me Water with berries in't; and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee And showed thee all the qualities o' th' isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.

  William Shakespeare

  Spring, Night, Light

  William Shakespeare (1998). “Four Late Plays”, p.357, Wordsworth Editions

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• Billions and billions.

  Carl Sagan

  Billions, Cosmology

  Keay Davidson, Carl Sagan (1999). “Carl Sagan: a life”, John Wiley & Sons

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