“It does not at first appear that an astronomer rapt in abstraction, while he gazes on a star, must feel more exquisite delight than a farmer who is conducting his team.” FeelsFirstsDoeStarsTeamAtheismDelightFarmersAbstractionExquisiteConductingAstronomers Author:Isaac D'Israeli
“Nancy According to astronomers, every atom in my body was forged in a star. I am made, they insist, of stardust. I am stardust braided into strands and streamers of information, proteins and DNA, double helixes of stardust. In every cell of my body there is a thread of stardust as long as my arm.” LongMadeBodyStarsInformationArmsCellsAtomsThreadDnaProteinStrandsStardustAstronomersForgedNancy Author:Chet Raymo
“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.” WorldLooksStarsPerfectGrowingSkyPoetDutyWoodsForestsGloriousDelightfulSageLicenseGlowingRaptureGemsAstronomersFirmamentDelightful Things Book:The Masquerade: And Other Poems Source: The Masquerade: And Other Poems
“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.” MenHumansTodayEarthFormUniverseStarsNumbersAttitudeOpinionDoubtProgressPlanetsTheoryCivilizationIntellectualIntelligentBelieverFlatsConceptionFreakArrogantPessimisticAstronomersIntelligent Life Author:Robert K. G. Temple
“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.” Has BeensArtHandsStarsDealsCommonVisionSubjectsMusicianConcernedPerfectionFunctionHarmonyMusicalDiscussionManipulationFourthFifthUndertakingsCommon GroundAstronomersTriads Author:Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
“The astronomer who catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to the universe; the poet can call an universe from the atom.” UniverseStarsPoetAddAtomsAstronomersCatalogues Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
“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.” WayScienceFoundStarsObjectsEvidenceMarkPhotographCloudsPocketsPlatesWipeIdentifyingWilsonAstronomersDomesMilky WayHandkerchiefsAndromedaNebula Author:Halton Arp
“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” WorldHumansWellsWholeEarthFilmStarsKnownRocksScalesMetalsSolitaryMultitudesObscureWell KnownGalaxyApolloLumpsAstronomersInconsequential Book:Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space