Astronomer Quotes

Neither rocks nor planets, they are something of Earth and Heaven.

Erik Ian Asphaug

What! the girl I adore by another embraced?
What! the balm of her breath shall another man taste?
What! pressed in the dance by another's man's knee?
What! panting recline on another than me?
Sir, she's yours; you have pressed from the grape its fine blue,
From the rosebud you've shaken the tremulous dew;
What you've touched you may take. Pretty waltzer—adieu!

Henry Englefield

All nature is one, but for convenience of classification we have divided our knowledge into a number of sciences which we usually regard as quite distinct from each other.

William Harkness

Compared with the splendour, the amplitude, the august motions, and the ideas of infinity which the celestial vault presents, the most resplendent terrestrial scenes sink into inanity, and appear unworthy of being set in competition with the glories of the sky.

Thomas Dick (scientist)

Thus, the very chance and randomness that prevent man from predicting the future are the tools that nature uses to insure not only the emergence of life in each expansion cycle of the universe but also the approach to perfection and complete harmony as more and complex forms of life evolve.

Science does not, I think, give a positive answer to questions concerning the immortality of the human soul...

We live in an era when it seems legitimate to try everything conceivable within the known laws of physics, particularly in the absence of data.

Geoffrey Burbidge

Dying visions of angels and Christ and God and heaven are confined to credibly good men. Why do not bad men have such visions? They die of all sorts of diseases; they have nervous temperaments; they even have creeds and hopes about the future which they cling to with very great tenacity; why do not they rejoice in some such glorious illusions when they go out of the world?

Enoch Fitch Burr

The cardinal truth emerging from these inquiries is that of the extreme isolation of the solar system. A skiff in the midst of a vast unfurrowed ocean is not more utterly alone.

Agnes Mary Clerke

The discovery of unknown laws and principles, as well as the explanation of phenomena by laws already known, is one of its [astrophysics] most important objects.

James Edward Keeler

Observations buried in a desk are no observations.

Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander

The astronomer's rule of thumb: if you don't write it down, it didn't happen.

The orbital analysis leads, therefore, to a perturbing mass of only 1.6 times the mass of Jupiter. We shall interpret this result as a companion of Barnard's star, which therefore appears to be a planet.

Peter van de Kamp

There is a point of view among astronomical researchers that is generally referred to as the Principle of Mediocrity.... If the Sun and its retinue of worlds is only one system among many, then many other systems will be like ours: home to life. Indeed, to the extent that this is true, we should be prepared for the possibility that, even in the Milky Way galaxy, billions of planets may be carpeted by the dirty, nasty business known as life.

To save my soul I can't believe in the canals as Schiaparelli draws them.... I verily believe... that the canals as depicted by Schiaparelli are a fallacy and that they will be so proved before many oppositions are past.

Edward Emerson Barnard

… one of the most detrimental (and least discussed) effects of the crisis in science education in the world today is that we are creating a population increasingly unable to think skeptically about a wide range of issues.

If eternity is silliness, then infinity of space is sheer madness.

Edward Robert Harrison

When we gaze at the starlit heavens, and admire the silvery radiance of the Milky Way, we would fain believe that there is absolute silence and rest, a perfect haven of repose.

When theory runs too far ahead of what can be measured, a field becomes more philosophy than science.

Christopher McKee

His knees should bend and his neck should curl, His back should twist and his face should scowl, One eye should squint and the other protrude, And this should be his customary attitude.

The Carmelites and other religious orders, who subsist only on the productions of the vegetable world, live to a greater age than those who feed on meat, and in general herbivorous persons are milder in their dispositions than other people.

Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster

Self-study, in a sense of learning by yourself without anybody teaching you anything, has an enormous value.

A theory can never be proven absolutely true, therefore there is no end to scientific endeavor. A true scientific theory is always open to be disproved, and the burden of proof is continually placed on the scientist.

Kristine Larsen

Every object in the Universe with a temperature above absolute zero radiates in the infrared, so this part of the spectrum contains a great deal of information.

Ultimately, the origin of the universe is, and always will be, a mystery.

Charles Stuart Bowyer