Astronomy Quotes - Page 4

• Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.

  Fred Hoyle

  Inspirational, Funny, Space

  1979 Quoted in the Observer,'Sayings of the Week', 9 Sep.

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• Let’s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome - and even comforting - than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.

  Carolyn Porco

  Beauty, God, Children

  "A Free-for-All on Science and Religion" by George Johnson, www.nytimes.com. November 21, 2006.

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• Data is not information, Information is not knowledge, Knowledge is not understanding, Understanding is not wisdom.

  Clifford Stoll

  Wisdom, Learning, Knowledge

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• To command their professors of astronomy to refute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to understand what they do understand.

  Galileo Galilei

  Religion, Atheism, Professors

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• Astronomy? Impossible to understand and madness to investigate.

  Sophocles

  Impossible, Madness, Cosmology

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• Astronomy was the cradle of the natural sciences and the starting point of geometrical theories.

  Cornelius Lanczos

  Natural, Cradle, Theory

  Cornelius Lanczos (1970). “Space through the ages: The evolution of geometrical ideas from Pythagoras to Hilbert and Einstein”

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• Starlight is falling on every square mile of the earth's surface, and the best we can do at present is to gather up and concentrate the rays that strike at area 100 inches in diameter.

  George Ellery Hale

  Fall, Squares, Rays

  George Ellery Hale (1931). “Signals from the Stars”

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• The scorn which I had reason to fear on account of the novelty and unconventionality of my opinion almost induced me to abandon completely the work which I had undertaken. . . . Astronomy is written for astronomers. To them my work too will seem, unless I am mistaken, to make some contribution.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Novelty, Opinion, Reason

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• Astronomy is one of the sublimest fields of human investigation. The mind that grasps its facts and principles receives something of the enlargement and grandeur belonging to the science itself. It is a quickener of devotion.

  Horace Mann

  Science, Mind, Principles

  Horace Mann (1872). “Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann ...”, p.41

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• In my studies of astronomy and philosophy I hold this opinion about the universe, that the Sun remains fixed in the centre of the circle of heavenly bodies, without changing its place; and the Earth, turning upon itself, moves round the Sun.

  Galileo Galilei

  Philosophy, Moving, Circles

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• On scientific grounds this big bang assumption is much less the palatable of the two. For it is an irrational process that cannot be described in scientific terms. . . . On philosophical grounds too I cannot see any good reason for preferring the big bang idea. Indeed it seems to me in the philosophical sense to be a distinctly unsatisfactory notion, since it puts the basic assumption out of sight where it can never be challenged by a direct appeal to observation.

  Fred Hoyle

  Philosophical, Sight, Ideas

  Fred Hoyle (1960). “The nature of the universe”

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• The narrow sectarian cannot read astronomy with impunity. The creeds of his church shrivel like dried leaves at the door of the observatory.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Doors, Church, Creeds

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2623, Delphi Classics

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• In my youth I regarded the universe as an open book, printed in the language of equations, whereas now it appears to me as a text written in invisible ink, of which in our rare moments of grace we are able to decipher a small segment.

  Arthur Koestler

  Book, Grace, Ink

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• If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon his creation, I should have recommended something simpler.
  Remarking on the complexity of Ptolemaic model of the universe after it was explained to him.

  Alfonso X of Castile

  Should Have, Creation, Lord

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• If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Beauty, Nature

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.9, Library of America

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• But when researchers at Bell Labs discovered that static tends to come from particular places in the sky, the whole field of radio astronomy opened up.

  Murray Gell-Mann

  Sky, Labs, Fields

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• We find, therefore, under this orderly arrangement, a wonderful symmetry in the universe, and a definite relation of harmony in the motion and magnitude of the orbs, of a kind that is not possible to obtain in any other way.

  Johannes Kepler

  Way, Orbs, Kind

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• You are what you read.

  Esko Valtaoja

  Book, Reading, Writing

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• I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery, but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing.

  Allan Sandage

  God, Science, Order

  "Sizing up the Cosmos: An Astronomer's Quest" by John Noble Wilford, www.nytimes.com. March 12, 1991.

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• For my confirmation, I didn't get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys. I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift.

  Wernher von Braun

  Mother, Boys, Technology

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• There are reasons, increasing in number and quality, to believe that the masses of ordinary galaxies may have been underestimated by a factor of 10 or more.

  Jeremiah P. Ostriker

  Believe, Numbers, Quality

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• In science, probably ninety-nine percent of the knowable has to be discovered. We know only a few streaks about astronomy. We are only beginning to imagine the force and composition of the atom. Physics has not yet found any indivisible matter, or psychology a sensible soul.

  Lincoln Steffens

  Knowledge, Science, Ninety Nine

  Lincoln Steffens (1936). “Lincoln Steffens speaking”

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• The Space Shuttle is the most effective device known to man for destroying dollar bills.

  Dana Rohrabacher

  Men, Space, Dollar Bills

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• Astronauts: rotarians in outer space.

  Gore Vidal

  Space, Astronaut, Outer Space

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• For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.

  John Calvin

  Art, Admirable, Pleasant

  John Calvin (2012). “John Calvin's Commentaries On Genesis 1-23 (Annotated Edition)”, p.60, Jazzybee Verlag

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