Top 100 Quotes About Astronomy
#1. I was never strong at maths, but I eventually got onto a university physics/astronomy course, and that led on to my Ph.D. and eventual employment.
Alastair Reynolds
#2. As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.
Freeman Dyson
#3. Architects should be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
#4. For it is obvious to everybody, I think, that this study [of astronomy] compels the soul to look upward and leads it away from things here to higher things.
Plato
#5. The amount of people I met that had heart problems surprised me in high altitude astronomy. I had not seen it in other fields. After a decade of working at high altitudes, I was also diagnosed with a heart problem.
Steven Magee
#6. But just as astronomy succeeded astrology, following Kepler's discovery of planetary regularities, the discoveries of these many principles in empirical explorations of intellectual processes in machines should lead to a science, eventually.
Marvin Minsky
#7. I got into science fiction by being interested in astronomy first.
Terry Pratchett
#8. Astronomy ... is of all others the science which seems to present to us the most striking instance of waste in nature.
Richard A. Proctor
#9. It seems to me that all the evidence points to Apollonius as the founder of Greek mathematical astronomy.
Otto E. Neugebauer
#10. In my studies of astronomy and philosophy I hold this opinion about the universe, that the Sun remains fixed in the centre of the circle of heavenly bodies, without changing its place; and the Earth, turning upon itself, moves round the Sun.
Galileo Galilei
#11. This is very similar to astronomy where different magnitudes are assigned to the brightness of an astronomical object, depending on the range of wavelengths being measured.
Charles Francis Richter
#12. Do you believe in astrology? -I don't even believe in astronomy.
Peter De Vries
#13. Certainly the history of astronomy shows that every time we thought we were special, we were wrong.
Seth Shostak
#14. For a long time I wanted to become a theologian ... now, however, behold how through my efforts God is being debated in astronomy.
Johannes Kepler
#15. I think music is about our internal life. It's part of the way people touch each other. That's very precious to me. And astronomy is, in a sense, the very opposite thing. Instead of looking inwards, you are looking out, to things beyond our grasp.
Brian May
#16. Geology, in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects of which it treats, undoubtedly ranks, in the scale of the sciences, next to astronomy.
John Herschel
#17. I have enormous respect for Derek Parfit, although he seems to me bound within an unfortunate philosophical tradition - rather like the extraordinarily brilliant exponents of Ptolemaic astronomy in the Middle Ages.
Philip Kitcher
#18. So fantasy was fine early on, and when I discovered science fiction, I was very happy with it, because my first interest in science fiction came with an interest in astronomy.
Octavia Butler
#19. A worldwide flood destroyed all life on earth about five thousand years ago requires denying an immense amount of generally accepted knowledge - from astronomy, physics, geology, paleontology, anthropology, archaeology, biology, cave paintings, and more.
Marcus J. Borg
#20. As our friend Zach has often noted, in our days those who do the best for astronomy are not the salaried university professors, but so-called dillettanti, physicians, jurists, and so forth.Lamenting the fragmentary time left to a professor has remaining after fulfilling his teaching duties.
Carl Friedrich Gauss
#22. There are a multitude of allied branches of knowledge connected with mans condition; the relation of these to political economy is analogous to the connexion of mechanics, astronomy, optics, sound, heat, and every other branch more or less of physical science, with pure mathematics.
William Stanley Jevons
#24. Essentially all civilizations that rose to the level of possessing an urban culture had need for two forms of science-related technology, namely, mathematics for land measurements and commerce and astronomy for time-keeping in agriculture and aspects of religious rituals.
Frederick Seitz
#25. Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
Plato
#26. Astronomy is a cold, desert science, with all its pompous figures,-depends a little too much on the glass-grinder, too little on the mind. 'T is of no use to show us more planets and systems. We know already what matter is, and more or less of it does not signify.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#27. My decision to begin research in radio astronomy was influenced both by my wartime experience with electronics and antennas and by one of my teachers, Jack Ratcliffe, who had given an excellent course on electromagnetic theory during my final undergraduate year.
Antony Hewish
#28. We should do astronomy because it is beautiful and because it is fun. We should do it because people want to know. We want to know our place in the universe and how things happen.
John N. Bahcall
#29. Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show where aour spoons are gone); and anatomy and physiology become phrenology and palmistry.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#30. Astronomy is one of the sublimest fields of human investigation. The mind that grasps its facts and principles receives something of the enlargement and grandeur belonging to the science itself. It is a quickener of devotion.
Horace Mann
#31. Astronomy would not provide me with bread if men did not entertain hopes of reading the future in the heavens.
Johannes Kepler
#32. Astronomy's much more fun when you're not an astronomer.
Brian May
#33. In 1959 the University recognized our work by appointing me to a new Chair of Radio Astronomy.
Martin Ryle
#34. I don't want to brag about how dumb I am, but this job is plain as astronomy to me. I understand everything about it except what you have done and why, and what you're trying to do and how.
Dashiell Hammett
#36. It's no problem." He picked up a slip of paper and then glanced up. "Astronomy 101? I'm heading that way too."
Great. For the whole semester I'd have to see the guy I nearly killed in the hallway.
Jennifer L. Armentrout
#37. Let no one expect anything of certainty from astronomy, lest if anyone take as true that which has been constructed for another use, he go away ... a bigger fool than when he came to it.
Bill Vaughan
#38. Teilhard merely seems to set the problem of man, as the utopian sees it, on lofty heights; yet, hi terminology, which mixes archeology, sociology, biology, astronomy, and a vulgarized theology, can, in fact, be translated at every turn into the language of collectivism and of totalitarian polices.
Thomas Molnar
#39. I knew that even if I were second or third rate, it was astronomy that mattered.
Edwin Powell Hubble
#40. Cosmology does, I think, affect the way that we perceive humanity's role in nature. One thing we've learnt from astronomy is that the future lying ahead is more prolonged than the past. Even our sun is less than halfway through its life.
Martin Rees
#41. There's a Universe Instrument, where we apply Hip-Hop to astronomy, and we flush out the chemistry of Hip-Hop. We also flushed out the astronomy, to see where Hip-Hop is read in the stars.
KRS-One
#43. Astronomy? Impossible to understand and madness to investigate.
Sophocles
#44. I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc..
Voltaire
#45. I love biomedical science, I love astronomy, and you can't really do much with those in a fantasy setting.
Elizabeth Moon
#46. I always thought that explained it: the romance is a reaction from the algebra. I never knew a person connected with mathematics or astronomy or statistics, or any of those exact things, who didn't have a crazy streak in 'em SOMEwhere.
Booth Tarkington
#47. The blow made her see stars. There was no time for astronomy in ground fighting, she thought,
Jim Butcher
#48. That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his works, and is the true theology.
Thomas Paine
#50. At this point, there flashed briefly through Stenton's horrified mind the memory of that timeless classic, H. G. Wells's "The Star." He had first read it as a small boy, and it had helped to spark his interest in astronomy.
Arthur C. Clarke
#51. Astrology is astronomy brought down to Earth and applied toward the affairs of men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#52. No one can read the history of astronomy without perceiving that Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, are not new men, or a new kind of men, but that Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empodocles, Aristorchus, Pythagorus, Oenipodes, had anticipated them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#54. It calls Devotion! genuine growth of night! Devotion! Daughter of Astronomy! An undevout astronomer is mad!
Edward Young
#55. Ignorance of the ages leaves me all but lifeless.
Not alone has it burnt sacred religious works,
but works of literature, art, philosophy, poetry,
astronomy, n' medicine, but to name a few.
Richard Mc Sweeney
#56. There are only certain intervals of time when life of any sort is possible in an expanding universe and we can practise astronomy only during that habitable time interval in cosmic history.
John D. Barrow
#57. The scorn which I had reason to fear on account of the novelty and unconventionality of my opinion almost induced me to abandon completely the work which I had undertaken ... Astronomy is written for astronomers. To them my work too will seem, unless I am mistaken, to make some contribution.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#58. Astronomy is useful because it raises us above ourselves; it is useful because it is grand; ... It shows us how small is man's body, how great his mind, since his intelligence can embrace the whole of this dazzling immensity, where his body is only an obscure point, and enjoy its silent harmony.
Henri Poincare
#59. To reveal a truth to a man unready to accept it is three sins at once. It makes him disbelieve in the truth, makes him think wrongly about you, and makes him say the truth is nonsense
- Hermis Tresmegistus, the founder of astronomy
Gerard Russell
#60. Reading, writing, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, physics, and more were all at one time deep occult secrets. Today, many of these things are taught to children before they begin school. THE OCCULTISM OF THE PAST BECOMES THE SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE.
Donald Michael Kraig
#61. It is much better to learn the elements of geology, of botany, or ornithology and astronomy by word of mouth from a companion than dully from a book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#62. Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy.
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or season's quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell ... Or say with princes if it shall go well ...
William Shakespeare
#63. But my most favourite pursuit, after my daily exertions at the Foundry, was Astronomy. There were frequently clear nights when the glorious objects in the Heavens were seen in most attractive beauty and brilliancy.
James Nasmyth
#64. We depend on various cultural forms-the syntax and semantics of English, the deliverances of modern astronomy-to know that the earth is round, but this in no way jeopardizes the objective circularity of the planet.
Douglas Groothuis
#65. Pursuing the religious life today without using psychedelics drugs is like studying astronomy with the naked eye because that's how they did it in the first century A.D.
Timothy Leary
#66. A high-school girl, seated next to a famous astronomer at a dinner party, struck up a conversation with him by asking: "What do you do for a living?" "I study astronomy," he replied. "Really? said the teenager, wide-eyed. "I finished astronomy last year."
James Keller
#67. The great world, so far as we know it from philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy.
Bertrand Russell
#68. My interest in science was excited at age nine by an article on astronomy in National Geographic; the author was Donald Menzel of the Harvard Observatory. For the next few years, I regularly made star maps and snuck out at night to make observations from a locust tree in our back yard.
Dudley R. Herschbach
#69. We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.
Simon Newcomb
#70. While it may be disappointing, I have to confess to people who ask for my insights on the meaning of it all that astronomy doesn't provide any clearly useful data on matters of sin and souls.
Seth Shostak
#71. What are your interests?"
"Your son in my room," I said.
"Excuse me?"
"The sun and the moon," I said. "Astronomy.
David Levithan
#72. The study of celestial phenomena at radio wavelengths, radio astronomy came into being after the accidental discovery of cosmic radiation by radio engineer Karl Jansky in 1933.
Honor Harger
#73. I got interested in astronomy at the age of 8 because I was looking at an atlas of the planets in my parents' apartment in Arlington, where I grew up. I got a telescope at age 10, which is pretty normal, and by the time I was in eighth grade, I had already seen a lot of cheesy sci-fi films.
Seth Shostak
#74. When Moses was alive, these pyramids were a thousand years old. Here began the history of architecture. Here people learned to measure time by a calendar, to plot the stars by astronomy and chart the earth by geometry. And here they developed that most awesome of all ideas - the idea of eternity.
Walter Cronkite
#75. I remember that he was always trying to expound to me in his broken Russian some special system of astronomy he had invented. I was told that he had once published it, but the learned world had only laughed at him. I think his wits were a little deranged.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
#76. For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere.
(on commenting the text of Genesis 1:6)
John Calvin
#77. I have always loved astronomy, and being an astronomer once lurked in the back of my mind. But I was never good at algebra. In fact, I flunked it twice in high school.
Natalie Babbitt
#78. The Gospel that represents Jesus Christ, not as a system of truth to be received, into the mind, as I should receive a system of philosophy, or astronomy, but it represents Him as a real, living, mighty Savior, able to save me now.
Catherine Booth
#80. Other job markets may lay claim to the title, but astronomy is actually the world's oldest profession.
Phil Plait
#81. ( ... ) The new nine muses, Commerce, Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Specch, Plural Voting, Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.
James Joyce
#82. Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.
Voltaire
#83. System debugging has always been a graveyard-shift occupation, like astronomy.
Fred Brooks
#84. The main reason why people should care about research in fundamental physics is the same reason they care about astronomy and cosmology. People, children, want to know what we're made out of, how it works, and why the universe is the way it is.
David Gross
#86. Astronomy is not the apex of science or of invention. But it is a test of the cast of temperament and mind that underlies a culture.
Jacob Bronowski
#87. I have a love for astronomy; Aruna, my wife, and I love travelling, so whenever we get an opportunity, we set off to explore places that have tickled our interest. We are also wildlife enthusiasts.
Viswanathan Anand
#88. It gives liberty and breadth to thought, to learn to judge our own epoch from the point of view of universal history, history from the point of view of geological periods, geology from the point of view of astronomy.
Henri Frederic Amiel
#89. The fool will upset the whole science of astronomy, but as the Holy Scripture shows, it was the sun and not the earth which Joshua ordered to stand still.
Martin Luther
#90. I had studied at Harvard and MIT astronomy and a lot about the heavens and the star system and so forth.
Edgar Mitchell
#91. So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#92. Astronomy was born of superstition; eloquence of ambition, hatred, falsehood, and flattery; geometry of avarice; physics of an idle curiosity; and even moral philosophy of human pride. Thus the arts and sciences owe their birth to our vices.
Jean-Baptiste Rousseau
#93. I do not believe there is any one study that can be taken up that will broaden the imagination, that will be the source from which will spring more deep thinking and sincere research than the study of astronomy.
Gene Stratton-Porter
#94. I think astronomy is a bad study for you. It makes you feel human insignificance too plainly.
Thomas Hardy
#95. My amateur interest in astronomy brought out the term 'magnitude', which is used for the brightness of a star.
Charles Francis Richter
#96. The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth.
Richard P. Feynman
#97. Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.
Rebecca West
#98. The narrow sectarian cannot read astronomy with impunity. The creeds of his church shrivel like dried leaves at the door of the observatory.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#99. Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
#100. My only wish would be to have 10 more lives to live on this planet. If that were possible, I'd spend one lifetime each in embryology, genetics, physics, astronomy and geology. The other lifetimes would be as a pianist, backwoodsman, tennis player, or writer for the 'National Geographic.'
Joseph Murray
