quotes about Astronomy
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Until 1930 or thereabout biologists [using microscopes], in the situation of Astronomers and Astrophysicists, were permitted to see the objects of their interest, but not to touch them; the cell was as distant from us, as the stars and galaxies were from them.
-- Albert Claude -
If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon his creation, I should have recommended something simpler. Remarking on the complexity of Ptolemaic model of the universe after it was explained to him.
-- Alfonso X of Castile -
Astronomy, as nothing else can do, teaches men humility.
-- Arthur C. Clarke -
The Astronomer's Drinking Song Astronomers! What can avail Those who calumniate us; Experiment can never fail With such an apparatus...
-- Augustus De Morgan -
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Nothing can be more destructive to ambition, and the passion for conquest, than the true system of astronomy. What a poor thing is even the whole globe in comparison of the infinite extent of nature!
-- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle -
As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property.
-- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle -
Astronomy's much more fun when you're not an astronomer
-- Brian May -
...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 -
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My amateur interest in astronomy brought out the term "magnitude," which is used for the brightness of a star.
-- Charles Richet -
It is surrounded by a thin flat ring, inclined to the ecliptic, and nowhere touches the body of the planet.
-- Christiaan Huygens -
This sight... is by far the noblest astronomy affords.
-- Edmond Halley -
The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.
-- Edwin Powell HubbleSource : Edwin Powell Hubble (1936). “The Realm of the Nebulæ”
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Astronomy is something like the ministry. No one should go into it without a call. I got that unmistakable call, and I know that even if I were second-rate or third-rate, it was astronomy that mattered.
-- Edwin Powell Hubble -
The great spirals, with their enormous radial velocities and insensible proper motions, apparently lie outside our Solar system.
-- Edwin Powell HubbleSource : Edwin Powell Hubble (1920). “Photographic Investigations of Faint Nebulae ...”
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I knew that even if I were second or third rate, it was astronomy that mattered.
-- Edwin Powell Hubble -
I love biomedical science, I love astronomy, and you can't really do much with those in a fantasy setting.
-- Elizabeth Moon -
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To command their professors of astronomy to refute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see and not to understand what they do understand.
-- Galileo Galilei -
There is in the universe neither center nor circumference.
-- Giordano Bruno -
Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night.
-- Henry BestonSource : Henry Beston, Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth (2001). “The Best of Beston: A Selection from the Natural World of Henry Beston from Cape Cod to the St. Lawrence”, p.28, David R. Godine Publisher
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...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 -
For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.
-- John Calvin -
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. BarrowSource : John D. Barrow (2011). “The Book of Universes”, p.99, Random House
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The barrier has begun to yield.
-- John HerschelSource : John Herschel (2014). “Essays from the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews”, p.550, Cambridge University Press
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Astronomy is the science of the harmony of infinite expanse.
-- John Scott Russell -
Of all the sciences, astronomy was the one the superstitious liked least.
-- Ken MacLeodSource : "Learning the World". Book by Ken MacLeod, 2005.
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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 -
Psychiatry is to medicine what astrology is to astronomy.
-- Leonard Roy Frank -
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In 1959 the University recognized our work by appointing me to a new Chair of Radio Astronomy.
-- Martin Ryle -
In creating the world, God used arithmetic, geometry, and likewise astronomy.
-- Nicholas of Cusa -
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 -
In first place we must observe that the universe is spherical. This is either because that figure is the most perfect, as not being articulated, but whole and complete in itself; or because it is the most capacious and therefore best suited for that which is to contain and preserve all things.
-- Nicolaus Copernicus -
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Do you believe in astrology? -I don't even believe in astronomy.
-- Peter De Vries -
Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson -
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Astronomy taught us our insignificance in Nature.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson -
Astronomy ... is of all others the science which seems to present to us the most striking instance of waste in nature.
-- Richard A. Proctor -
Why don't they make more science fiction movies? The answer to any question starting, Why don't they- is almost always, Money.
-- Robert A. Heinlein -
I liked math - that was my favorite subject - and I was very interested in astronomy and in physical science.
-- Sally Ride -
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We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy.
-- Simon Newcomb -
Astronomy teaches the correct use of the sun and the planets.
-- Stephen Leacock -
Astronomy, that micography of heaven, is the most magnificent of the sciences. ... Astronomy has its clear side and its luminous side; on its clear side it is tinctured with algebra, on its luminous side with poetry.
-- Victor Hugo -
It seems to me that all the evidence points to Apollonius as the founder of Greek mathematical astronomy.
-- Otto E. Neugebauer -
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Astronomy was the cradle of the natural sciences and the starting point of geometrical theories.
-- Cornelius LanczosSource : Cornelius Lanczos (1970). “Space through the ages: The evolution of geometrical ideas from Pythagoras to Hilbert and Einstein”
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The more I know of astronomy, the more I believe in God.
-- Heber Doust Curtis -
A lot of work and money has been spent on astronomy and yet we have not found life. So we are rare, and rare things tend to be fragile and you have to be careful about them
-- John Gummer