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Astronomers Quotes

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Astronomers Quotes

“The Poet's License! 't is the right, Within the rule of duty, To look on all delightful things Throughout the world of beauty. To gaze with rapture at the stars That in the skies are glowing; To see the gems of perfect dye That in the woods are growing, And more than sage astronomer, And more than learned florist, To read the glorious homilies Of Firmament and Forest.”

World Looks Stars Perfect Growing Sky Poet Duty Woods Forests Glorious Delightful Sage License Glowing Rapture Gems Astronomers Firmament Delightful Things

Book:The Masquerade: And Other Poems

Source: The Masquerade: And Other Poems

“I was a kind of a one-man army. I could solder circuits together, I could turn out things on the lathe, I could work with rockets and balloons. I'm a kind of a hybrid between an engineer and a physicist and astronomer.”

Men Kind Together Turns Army One Man Engineers Physicist Rockets Circuits Balloons Hybrid Astronomers

Author:James Van Allen

“In the popular mind, if Hoyle is remembered it is as the prime mover of the discredited Steady State theory of the universe. "Everybody knows" that the rival Big Bang theory won the battle of the cosmologies, but few (not even astronomers) appreciate that the mathematical formalism of the now-favoured version of Big Bang, called inflation, is identical to Hoyle's version of the Steady State model.”

Ifs Knows Mind States Bigs Universe Theory Battle Models Appreciate Versions Mathematical Remembered Prime Steady Inflation Bangs Rivals Identical Cosmology Astronomers

Author:Fred Hoyle

“Only in the Roman Empire and in Spain under Arab domination has culture been a potent factor. Under the Arab, the standard attained was wholly admirable; to Spain flocked the greatest scientists, thinkers, astronomers, and mathematicians of the world, and side by side there flourished a spirit of sweet human tolerance and a sense of purist chivalry. Then with the advent of Christianity, came the barbarians.”

“Today we know not only that there is a terrible amount of disorder in the heavens - great catastrophes or conflagrations occur frequently - but evolution gives us a perfectly natural explanation of such order as there is. No distinguished astronomer now traces "the finger of God" in the heavens; and astronomers ought to know best.”

Knows Giving Today Order Heaven Natural Atheism Ought Evolution Amount Terrible Fingers Explanation Disorder Catastrophe Distinguished Astronomers Perfectly Natural

Book:The Story of Religious Controversy

Source: The Story of Religious Controversy

“I read not so long ago about the construction of a large telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert, where rainfall can average a millimetre a year and the air is fifty times as dry as the air in Death Valley. Needless to say, skies over the Atacama are pristine. The pilgrim astronomer ventures to the earth's ravaged reaches in order to peer more keenly at other worlds, and I suppose the novelist is up to something similar.”

World Years Long Earth Order Air Sky Average Desert Novelists Dry Fifty Valleys Construction Long Ago Peers Venture Other Worlds Pilgrim Telescopes Astronomers Chile Pristine Rainfall

Author:Brad Leithauser

“So great was the preference given to sacred over profane learning that Christianity had been in existence fifteen hundred years, and had not produced a single astronomer.”

Years Given Existence Christianity Atheism Hundred Sacred Fifteen Preference Astronomers Profane

Book:History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science: By John William Draper ...

Source: History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science: By John William Draper ...

“In the middle 1970s an astronomer I admire put together a modest manifesto called "Objections to Astrology" and asked me to endorse it. I struggled with his wording, and in the end found myself unable to sign, not because I thought astrology has any validity whatever, but because I felt (and still feel) that the tone of the statement was authoritarian.”

Source: Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“It must be a very dour and pessimistic astronomer indeed who seriously doubts that there must be countless numbers of intelligent civilizations scattered throughout the universe on other planets which are orbiting around other stars. An attitude which asserts that man is the only intelligent life form in the universe is intolerably arrogant today ... anyone who holds such an opinion today is, fortunately for those who like to see some progress in human conceptions, something of an intellectual freak equivalent to a believer in the Flat Earth Theory.”

“The botanist looks upon the astronomer as a being unworthy of his regard; and he that is glowing great and happy by electrifying a bottle wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war and peace.”

World Looks War Wonder Regard Engaged Look Up Comparison Bottles Unworthy Glowing Astronomers Trifling

Author:Samuel Johnson

“The astronomers tell us that other planets are gifted with two - four - even nine lavish moons. Imagine the romantic possibilities of nine moons.”

Two Four Imagine Possibility Planets Moon Nine Gifted Astronomers

Book:A Kind of Magic

Source: A Kind of Magic

“I've got a telescope in my garden and one of the things I love to do is go out and let the sky, the night sky, the galaxies, the Orion nebula, have an impact on my mind. I find that awe inspiring. And just to contemplate on what the astronomers have revealed to us about the immense size and so on of the universe. I find that very healthy. And it's a good thing to do.”

Mind Night Universe Sky Healthy Garden Impact Good Things Size Things To Do Awe Contemplating Immense Galaxy Night Sky Telescopes Things I Love Astronomers Awe Inspiring Orion Nebula

Author:John Lennox

“As an astronomer in the true sense of the term, Sir John Herschel stood before all his contemporaries. Nay, he stood almost alone.”

Term Astronomers

Book:Essays on astronomy: a series of papers on planets and meteors, the sun and sun-surrounding space, stars and star cloudets, and a dissertation on the approaching transits of venus : preceded by a scetch of the life and work of Sir John Herschel

Source: Essays on astronomy: a series of papers on planets and meteors, the sun and sun-surrounding space, stars and star cloudets, and a dissertation on the approaching transits of venus : preceded by a scetch of the life and work of Sir John Herschel

“Astronomers are pure of heart and appealingly puerile. They look into the midnight sky and ask big questions, just as we did when we were in college: Who are we? Where do we come from? And why are we standing around outside on the night before finals, do we want to end up making elevator parts for a living like our father or what?”

Want Looks Heart Ends Bigs Science Night Asks Father Sky College Pure Standing Finals Midnight Our Father Night Sky Elevators Astronomers Big Questions

Book:The Canon: The Beautiful Basics of Science

Source: The Canon: The Beautiful Basics of Science

“Astronomy is so easy to love. ... Fairly or not, physics is associated with nuclear bombs and nuclear waste, chemistry with pesticides, biology with Frankenfood and designer-gene superbabies. But astronomers are like responsible ecotourists, squinting at the scenery through high-quality optical devices, taking nothing but images that may be computer-enhanced for public distribution, leaving nothing but a few Land Rover footprints on faraway Martian soil, and OK, OK, maybe the Land Rover, too.”

“Wherefore in all great works are Clerks so much desired? Wherefore are Auditors so well-fed? What causeth Geometricians so highly to be enhaunsed? Why are Astronomers so greatly advanced? Because that by number such things they find, which else would farre excell mans minde.”

Wells Numbers Mathematics Feds Great Work Clerks Astronomers Auditors

Author:Robert Recorde

“John Kerry and Ralph Nader met face-to-face, it was a historic meeting. Astronomers said today their meeting actually created what is called a 'charisma black hole.'”

Said Today Faces Black Mets Meetings Holes Historic Face To Face Charisma John Kerry Astronomers Black Hole

Author:Jay Leno

“To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable - human-induced CO2 - is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science.”

“Astronomers do not commonly use Venereal, in favor of the less contagious-sounding Venutian. Blame the medical community, who snatched the word long before astronomers had any good use for it. I suppose you can't blame the doctors. Venus is the goddess of beauty and love, so she ought to be the goddess of its medical consequences.”

Long Use Culture Community Ought Consequence Doctors And Love Blame Medical Favors Goddess Contagious Venus Astronomers Beauty And Love

Book:The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

Source: The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

“Two Chinamen visiting Europe went to the theatre for the first time. One of them occupied himself with trying to understand the theatrical machinery, which he succeeded in doing. The other, despite his ignorance of the language, sought to unravel the meaning of the play. The former is like the astronomer, the latter the philosopher.”

Trying Firsts Two Play Science Language Ignorance First Time Europe Philosophical Philosopher Theatre Despite Former Latter Machinery Visiting Theatrical Astronomers

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer

“The scent of frying astronomers long ago ceased to ascend to Yahweh.”

Long Atheism Positive Atheism Long Ago Scent Astronomers Frying Yahweh

Author:H. L. Mencken

“As a confirmed astronomer I'm always for a better sky.”

Sky Astronomers

Book:The poetry of Robert Frost

Source: The poetry of Robert Frost

“Astronomers have a common ground for discussion with musicians in the harmony of the stars and musical concords in tetrads and triads of the fourth and the fifth, and with geometricians in the subject of vision; and in all other sciences many points, perhaps all, are common so far as the discussion of them is concerned. But the actual undertaking of works which are brought to perfection by the hand and its manipulation is the function of those who have been specially trained to deal with a single art.”

“The astronomer who catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to the universe; the poet can call an universe from the atom.”

Universe Stars Poet Add Atoms Astronomers Catalogues

Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

“Female physicists, astronomers and mathematicians are up against more than 2,000 years of convention that has long portrayed these fields as inherently male.”

Years Long Fields Female Males Conventions Mathematician Physicist Astronomers

Author:Margaret Wertheim

“Scriptures were written, not to satisfy our curiosity and make us astronomers, but to lead us to God, and make us saints.”

Written Saint Scripture Astronomers

Author:Matthew Henry

“Picture yourself during the early 1920's inside the dome of the Mount Wilson Observatory. ... Humason is showing Shapley stars he had found in the Andromeda Nebula that appeared and disappeared on photographs of that object. The famous astronomer very patiently explains that these objects could not be stars because the Nebula was a nearby gaseous cloud within our own Milky Way system. Shapley takes his handkerchief from his pocket and wipes the identifying marks off the back of the photographic plate.”

Way Science Found Stars Objects Evidence Mark Photograph Clouds Pockets Plates Wipe Identifying Wilson Astronomers Domes Milky Way Handkerchiefs Andromeda Nebula

Author:Halton Arp

“Throughout history, humankind has been resistant to change and to the acceptance of new ideas... When Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter, the astronomers of that time refused to accept or even to look at these satellites because the existence of these moons conflicted with their accepted beliefs. So it is now with psychiatrists and other therapists, who refuse to examine and evaluate the considerable evidence being gathered about survival after bodily death and about past life memories. Their eyes are tightly shut.”

“The Apollo pictures of the whole Earth conveyed to multitudes something well known to astronomers: On the scale of the worlds - to say nothing of stars or galaxies - humans are inconsequential, a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal”

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“Yet the widespread planetary theories, advanced by Ptolemy and most other astronomers, although consistent with the numerical data, seemed likewise to present no small difficulty. For these theories were not adequate unless they also conceived certain equalizing circles, which made the planet appear to move at all times with uniform velocity neither on its deferent sphere nor about its own epicycle's center.”

Made Moving Science Certain Planets Theory Difficulty Circles All Time Data Consistent Spheres Uniforms Adequate Astronomers Velocity

Author:Nicolaus Copernicus

“I have been told that one of the reasons the astronomers of the world cooperate is the fact that there is no one nation from which the entire sphere of the sky can be seen. Perhaps there is in that fact a parable for national statesmen, whose political horizons are all too often limited by national horizons.”

World Has Beens Reason Facts Political Nations Sky Horizon Spheres Astrology Statesmen Parables Astronomers

Author:Adlai Stevenson I

“It calls Devotion! genuine growth of night! Devotion! Daughter of Astronomy! An undevout astronomer is mad!”

Night Growth Daughter Madness Mad Astronomy Genuine Devotion Astronomers

Author:Edward Young

“An undevout astronomer is mad.”

Mad Astronomers

Author:Edward Young

“Naming celestial objects is usually done by astronomers and professionals. Other people who are interested in space never get the opportunity to do that kind of thing.”

People Kind Done Opportunity Space Objects Celestial Astronomers

Author:Alan Stern

“Have you noticed that the astronomers and mathematicians are much the most cheerful people of the lot? I suppose that perpetually contemplating things on so vast a scale makes them feel either that it doesn't matter a hoot anyway, or that anything so large and elaborate must have some sense in it somewhere.”

People Feels Matter Scales Contemplating Mathematician Cheerful Astronomers Hoot

Author:Dorothy L. Sayers

“As an astronomer, I get to ignore the details of the things that we dont understand. Theres a lot of work that we can do on scales that we do understand, and there is actually a finite size that I can associate with a super massive black hole.”

I Can Black Can Do Size Details Scales Holes Massive Associates Finite Astronomers Black Hole

Author:Andrea M. Ghez

“My parents gave me a small telescope, then I built my own, and one thing led to another. So thats how I ended up going from being a hobby astronomer to a professional astronomer.”

Parent My Own One Thing Built Hobbies Telescopes Astronomers

Author:Dimitar Sasselov

“Just because a man glances up at the sky at night does not make him an astronomer, you know.”

Knows Men Doe Night Sky Glances Astronomers

Author:John Boyne

“I do not see how astronomers can help feeling exquisitely insignificant, for every new page of the Book of the Heavens they open reveals to them more and more that the world we are so proud of is to the universe of careening globes as is one mosquito to the winged and hoofed flocks and herds that darken the air and populate the plains and forests of all the earth. If you killed the mosquito would it be missed? Verily, What is Man, that he should be considered of God?”

Ifs Men World Should Book Helping Feelings Earth Universe Heaven Air Proud Pages Forests Globes Insignificant Herds Flocks Astronomers Mosquitoes

Author:Mark Twain

“When I was a little kid back in Moscow, Russia, I've always thought I would become an artist or a folk dancer or an astronomer. In fact, if you'd asked me then about a life of solitary writing I would have said, "Oh how boring! Imagine, to sit at a desk all day and just write."”

Ifs Writing Littles Said Facts Kids Artist Imagine Folks Boring Russia Dancer Solitary Desks Little Kid Moscow Astronomers

Author:Vera Nazarian

“I call God ECCO (Earth Coincidence Control Office) . It's much more satisfying to call it that. A lot of people accept this and they don't know that they're just talking about God. I finally found a God that was big enough. As the astronomer said to the Minister, My God's astronomical. The Minister said, How can you relate to something so big? The astronomer said, Well, that isn't the problem, your God's too small!”

People Knows Wells Said Enough Problem Bigs Earth Religion Found Talking Accepting Office Relate Ministers Satisfying Coincidence Astronomers

Author:John C. Lilly

“I may remind you that history is not a branch of literature. The facts of history, like the facts of geology or astronomy, can supply material for literary art; for manifest reasons they lend themselves to artistic representation far more readily than those of the natural sciences; but to clothe the story of human society in a literary dress is no more the part of a historian as a historian, than it is the part of an astronomer as an astronomer to present in an artistic shape the story of the stars.”

“For seventeenth-century astronomers, the Epicurean doctrine of multiple worlds separated by void space was seen to fit with the new Copernican system in which every star was a sun, and the universe was a vast place with no centre.”

World Universe Stars Space Sun Century Fit Doctrine Void Multiple Centre Astronomers Epicurean

Author:Catherine Wilson

“The body is extremely important to me, because it is a planet. For instance, if you compare Earth and an astronomer, you will see that the man is a planet.”

Ifs Men Important Body Earth He Man Planets Instance Compare Astronomers

Author:Paul Virilio

“Just before I said I wanted to be an astronomer I said I wanted to be a baseball player. I was quite athletic at the time, probably because I was bigger than other kids, and if you're bigger than other kids and you're 11 you win everything.”

Ifs Said Kids Wanted Winning Player Baseball Bigger Athletic Baseball Player Astronomers

Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson

“People get cranky when you burst their bubble. Over time, advances in astronomy have relentlessly reinforced the utter insignificance of Earth on a celestial scale. Fortunately, political and religious leaders stopped barbecuing astronomers for saying so, turning their spits with human-rights activists instead.”

People Humans Earth Political Religious Leader Rights Human Rights Astronomy Scales Activist Bubbles Spit Celestial Astronomers Insignificance Religious Leaders Cranky

Author:Nathan Myhrvold

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

Source: Cosmos

“Whether you are an astronomer or a life scientist, geophysicist, or a pilot, you've got to be there because you believe you are good in your field, and you can contribute, not because you are going to get a lot of fame or whatever when you get back.”

Believe Fields Fame Scientist Get Back Pilots Astronomers

Author:Alan Shepard

“When I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.”

Source: Drum-Taps: The Complete 1865 Edition

“Probably the closest things to perfection are the huge absolutely empty holes that astronomers have recently discovered in space. If there's nothing there, how can anything go wrong?”

Ifs Space Huge Perfection Empty Lovely Holes Closest Astronomers Anything Goes

Author:Richard Brautigan