Astronomer Quotes

Yet if we go into space, let us do so humbly, in the spirit of cosmic piety. We know very little. We are face to face with the great unknown and have no right to assume that we are alone in the Solar System.

An isolated sensation teaches us nothing, for it does not amount to an observation. Observation is a putting together of several results of sensation which are or are supposed to be connected with each other according to the law of causality, so that some represent causes and others their effects.

Thorvald N. Thiele
Thorvald N. Thiele
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.

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

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.

It is a solemn thought that no man liveth unto himself. It is equally true that no star, no atom, no electron, no ripple of radiant energy, exists unto itself. All the problems of the physical universe are inextricably bound up with one another in the relations of space and time.

Theory may often delay understanding of new phenomena observed with new technology unless theorists are quite open-minded as to what types of physical laws may need to be applied: conservatism is unsafe...In astrophysics, historically, theories have only seldom had predictive usefulness as guides to experimenters.

Hail! then, ye eyes that penetrate the inmost recesses of the heavens, and gazing upon the bosom of the sun with your sight-assisting tube, have dared to point out the spots on that eternal luminary !

The sky is beautiful and vast and harbors many secrets. Inventory of Cosmic Mysteries

It is no secret that our lives are patterned by personal experience, and by our observations of the experience of others. So it is with the entire human family, staring outward from a place that we know to others that we do not. Our knowledge of home helps us to understand the ways of planets beyond our ken.

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.

So clear and sparkling is this autumn night that, with averted vision, I can see quite readily the wraithlike wisps of nebulosity that festoon and enmesh this entire little cluster.

Success in science means the birth of new knowledge.

Beeping on and on you sing — Are you saying anything? Twinkle, twinkle more, pulsar, How I wonder what you are.

We need a new kind of engineer, one who can build bridges to society as well as bridges across rivers.

William Henry Pickering
William Henry Pickering
Happy is genius, when it lights on a profession entirely consonant to its powers, where the objects successively presented to it are so exactly suited to its nature, that it clings to them as the loadstone to its kindred metal among piles of foreign ores.

Denison Olmsted
Denison Olmsted
Oh thick wits. Oh blind watchers of the sky.
In Latin: O crassia ingenia, O coecos coeli spectatores.

Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Observations buried in a desk are no observations.

Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
I have searched through the heavens, and nowhere have I found a trace of God.

Needle-like grains tend to spin end-over-end, like a well-kicked American football.

Here, in the dark unknown immensity of the heavens, we shall meet the glories beyond description and witness scenes of inexpressible splendor. In the great black gulfs of space and in the realm of the innumerable stars, we shall find mysteries and wonders undreamed of.

Einstein may be a treasure, but there is a fearsome troop of mathematical reptiles keeping inquisitive folk away from it; though there can be no doubt that they have, like our Gothic gargoyles, a hidden, beauty of their own.

To be a true scientist is only to have an inkling of the full extent of man's ignorance.

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.

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

Asaph Hall
Asaph Hall