Man must rise above the Earth—to the top of the atmosphere and beyond—for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
— Socrates
Do there exist many worlds, or is there but a single world? This is one of the most noble and exalted questions in the study of Nature.
— Albertus Magnus, c. 13th Century.
The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, or falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
— Carl Sagan
If there is anything that can bind the heavenly mind of man to this dreary exile of our earthly home and can reconcile us with our fate so that one can enjoy living—then it is verily the enjoyment of the mathematical sciences and astronomy.
— Johannes Kepler
A time will come when men will stretch out their eyes. They should see planets like our Earth.
~ Christopher Wren.
And God made two great lights, great for their use To man, the greater to have rule by day, The less by night, altern.
~ John Milton.
As the twentieth century began, science equaled a materialistic worldview. As the twenty- first century began, the worldview of science, at least of physics and astronomy, may have traded place with that of religion. Consider Einstein’s famous equation E = mc2. Nothing of matter dies but continues on in another form, elsewhere. The church divines and theologians for two thousand years have devised arguments and “proofs” of immortality but nothing equal to this.
~ Huston Smith.
Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
At night astronomers agree.
~ Matthew Prior.
By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive Truth.
~ Yukio Mishima.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
~ Edsger W. Dijkstra.
Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the system of procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, “with eyes wide open.”
~ Nicholas Copernicus.
Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.
~ Albert Einstein.
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
~ Plato.