Comets Quotes - Page 4

• Aristotle's opinion... that comets were nothing else than sublunary vapors or airy meteors... prevailed so far amongst the Greeks, that this sublimest part of astronomy lay altogether neglected; since none could think it worthwhile to observe, and to give an account of the wandering and uncertain paths of vapours floating in the Ether.

  Edmond Halley

  Thinking, Giving, Greek

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• Were I
  as quiet as thunder,
  how I'd wail and whine!
  One groan of mine
  would start the world's crumbling cloister shivering.
  And if
  I'd end up by roaring
  with all of its power of lungs and more -
  the comets, distressed, would wring their hands
  and from the sky's roof
  leap in a fever.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Hands, Sky, Roaring

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1985). “Селестед Воркс ин Тхрее Волумес: Селестед версе”

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• Please join me in applauding the ESA - European Space Agency’s historic efforts with the Rosetta Mission and landing a spacecraft on rotating comet. It may seem like a work of fiction, but it is very real, very impressive, and will help us to further uncover the mysteries surrounding the formation of the solar system. They made a beautiful short film using an imaginary landscape to illustrate today’s historic feat.

  Stephen Hawking

  Beautiful, Real, Agency

  FaceBook post by Stephen Hawking from Nov 12, 2014

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• His epitaph: Who, by vigor of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated.

  Isaac Newton

  Sea, Mind, Vigor

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• Gryffindor leads by eighty points to zero, and look at that Firebolt go! Potter’s really putting it through its paces now, see it turn — Chang’s Comet is just no match for it, the Firebolt’s precision-balance is really noticeable in these long —” “JORDAN! ARE YOU BEING PAID TO ADVERTISE FIREBOLTS? GET ON WITH THE COMMENTARY!

  J. K. Rowling

  Zero, Long, Balance

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• I've had experiences in my life that leave no doubt in my mind about the fact that God exists. I'm quite willing to debate people who don't think so because I want them to explain to me how did our solar system get so organized and how is the universe so complex and yet well-organized that we can predict 70 years hence when a comet is coming?

  Benjamin Carson

  Thinking, Years, People

  Controversial address vaults Hopkins' Carson into political arena, The Baltimore Sun, articles.baltimoresun.com. February 18, 2013.

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• This willingness continually to revise one's own location in order to place oneself in the path of beauty is the basic impulse underlying education. One submits oneself to other minds (teachers) in order to increase the chance that one will be looking in the right direction when a comet makes its sweep through a certain patch of sky.

  Elaine Scarry

  Teacher, Order, Sky

  Elaine Scarry (2013). “On Beauty and Being Just”, p.7, Princeton University Press

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• If there is a god, he is not only a wizard at leaving clues behind. More than anything, he's a master of concealment. And the world is not something that gives itself away. The heavens still keep their secrets. There is little gossip amongst the stars. But no one has forgotten the Big Bang yet. Since then, silence has reigned supreme, and every thing there is moving away. One can still come across a moon. Or a comet. Just don't expect friendly greetings. No visiting cards are printed in space.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Stars, Moving, Moon

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• Because our lungs regularly deal with carbon dioxide, they see nothing wrong with absorbing its cousin, SiO2, which can be fatal. Many dinosaurs might have died this way when a metropolis-sized asteroid or comet struck the earth 65 million years ago.

  Sam Kean

  Cousin, Years, Earth

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• The horrors of Vivisection have supplanted the solemnity, the thrilling fascination, of the old unetherized operation upon the human sufferer. Their recorded phenomena, stored away by the physiological inquisitor on dusty shelves, are mostly of as little present use to man as the knowledge of a new comet or of a tungstate of zirconium ... -contemptibly small compared with the price paid for it in agony and torture.

  Henry Jacob Bigelow

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  "Surgical Anaesthesia: Addresses and Other Papers". P. 309. Book by Henry Jacob Bigelow, 1894.

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• The insincerity of man-all men are liars, partial or hiders of facts, half tellers of truths, shirks, moral sneaks. When a merely honest man appears he is a comet-his fame is eternal-needs no genius, no talent-mere honesty

  Mark Twain

  Honesty, Liars, Men

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.205, Courier Corporation

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• Our rockets can find Halley's comet, and fly to Venus with amazing accuracy, but side by side with these scientific and technical triumphs is an obvious lack of efficiency in using scientific achievements for economic needs. Many Soviet household appliances are of poor quality.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  War, Poor Quality, Achievement

  Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, Ernest W. Lefever (1989). “Perestroika: how new is Gorbachev's new thinking? : Mikhail Gorbachev's views and responses from Zbigniew Brezinski ... [and others]”, Ethics & Public Policy Center

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• I remember for that one moment, I believe I was hitch hiking on one of those comets, falling so fast that I'd surely burn away before I ever hit the ground.

  Jodi Picoult

  Believe, Fall, Hiking

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• What we did is we went on those parabolic flights, which people like to call the vomit comet. Basically, the plane throws you up into the air and catches you. And for about 30 seconds, you feel like there's no gravity. So what we did was we did a series of eight of those in a row. And every time we landed, we stayed perfectly still for the five minutes in between while the plane is setting up so that we could just continue the routine where we had left off. So the final video you see is all one take. And we seem to be weightless the entire time.

  Damian Kulash

  Eight, Air, People

  "OK Go Drops New Zero-Gravity Video". "Weekend Edition Sunday" with Rachel Martin, www.npr.org. February 14, 2016.

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• Live on berries in a hollowed-out comet lit by artificial suns long enough, and you start to have delusions about achieving enlightenment.

  Hannu Rajaniemi

  Long, Enlightenment, Sun

  Hannu Rajaniemi (2012). “The Fractal Prince”, p.17, Hachette UK

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• It was always easier for me to show love than to say it. The word reminded me of pralines: small, precious, almost unbearable sweet. I would light up in his presence; I felt like a sun in the constellation of his embrace. But trying to put what I felt for him into words diminished it somehow, like pinning a butterfly under glass, or videotaping a comet.

  Jodi Picoult

  Sweet, Butterfly, Glasses

  Jodi Picoult (2009). “Handle with Care: A Novel”, p.207, Simon and Schuster

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• A native of America who cannot read or write is . . . as rare as a comet or an earthquake.

  John Adams

  Education, Writing, America

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• And that was it; it was so easy for her. My own memories did not even belong to me. But I knew she was wrong. I had seen that comet. I knew it as well as I knew my own face, my own hands. My own heart.

  Sarah Dessen

  Memories, Heart, Hands

  Sarah Dessen (2004). “Someone Like You”, p.133, Penguin

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• I want to travel on a train that smells like snowflakes. I want to sip in cafes that smell like comets. Under the pressure of my step, I want the streets to emit the precise odor of a diamond necklace. I want the newspapers I read to smell like the violins left in pawnshops by weeping hobos on Christmas Eve. I want to carry luggage that reeks of the neurons in Einstein's brain. I want a city's gases to smell like the golden belly hairs of the gods. And when I gaze at a televised picture of the moon, I want to detect, from a distance of 239,000 miles, the aroma of fresh mozzarella.

  Tom Robbins

  Distance, Moon, Hair

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• You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place. But standing there alone on the landing, I thought of Grandma Halley and how she'd held me close against her lap as we watched the sky together. I'd always thought I couldn't remember, but suddenly in that moment, I closed my eyes and saw the comet, finally, brilliant and impossible, stretching above me across the sky.

  Sarah Dessen

  Grandma, Eye, Sky

  Sarah Dessen (2004). “Someone Like You”, p.166, Penguin

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• Oh, how portentous is prosperity! How comet-like, it threatens while it shines.

  Edward Young

  Shining, Prosperity

  Edward Young (1822). “The Complaint; Or, Night-thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality ... To which is Added, A Paraphrase on Part of the Book of Job”, p.115

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• Because it's one of those things I never expected in my lifetime," he told me. "Like a comet. Or world peace. I'm just used to you being single." For some reason, that bothered me. "What, you don't think any guy would ever be interested in me?" Actually," said Adrian, sounding remarkably serious, "I can imagine lots of guys being interested in you.

  Richelle Mead

  Being Single, Thinking, Guy

  Richelle Mead (2012). “The Golden Lily: A Bloodlines Novel”, p.62, Penguin

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• So that, were it the purpose of God to produce comets as signs of his wrath it would be true to say that he is quickening a false devotion almost all over the world, increasing the number of pilgrims to Mecca, multiplying the offerings to the most famous impostors, inducing men to build mosques for Mohammedan worship, causing the invention of new superstitions among the dervishes - in a word, stimulating many abominable things which otherwise might not have been.

  Pierre Bayle

  Men, Offering, Numbers

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• True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Freedom, School, Self Confidence

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• The movement of comets is part of the ordinary works of nature which, without regard to the happiness or misery of mankind, are transported from one part of the heavens to another by virtue of the general laws of motion.

  Pierre Bayle

  Law, Heaven, Atheism

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