Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes

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.

Astronomy is so easy to love. ... Fairly or not, physics is associated with nuclear bombs and nuclear waste, chemistry with pesticides, biology with Frankenfood and designer-gene superbabies. But astronomers are like responsible ecotourists, squinting at the scenery through high-quality optical devices, taking nothing but images that may be computer-enhanced for public distribution, leaving nothing but a few Land Rover footprints on faraway Martian soil, and OK, OK, maybe the Land Rover, too.

I am an astronomer, and my job is to look to the heavens to better understand the universe and our place in it.

Astronomy is written for astronomers

I am a great fan of the universe, which I take literally: as one. All of it interests me, and it interests me in detail.

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.

Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology.

No star seemed less than what science has taught us that it is.

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.

For your own safety, do not ever tell an astrophysicist, I hope all your stars are twinkling.

Of all the sciences, astronomy was the one the superstitious liked least.

Astronomers are spherical bastards. No matter how you look at them they are just bastards.

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.

The Keck telescope, which is the largest in the world, had opened just before I began my faculty position at UCLA.

In praising science, it does not follow that we must adopt the very poor philosophies which scientific men have constructed. In philosophy they have much more to learn than to teach.

The National Academy of Sciences would be unable to give a unanimous decision if asked whether the sun would rise tomorrow.

Astronomers ought to be able to ask fundamental questions without accelerators.

Science will explain how but not why. It talks about what is, not what ought to be. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive; it can tell us about causes but it cannot tell us about purposes. Indeed, science disavows purposes.

Many people find the universe confusing - it's not.

It's hard to know which stars in the sky will turn into black holes. And which ones will open up worm holes into entire new universes.

My interest in astronomy grew from the play 'Space' that I did, where I had to learn where my character was from. I had to study the stars and figure where everything was and how I got here and all of those things.

I think probably the discoveries made by Hubble Space Telescope have been very dramatic, very amazing.

If I had to go back to school for anything, I'd go for astronomy.

I expect New Horizons will see more that Hubble cannot see.

Hubble is unique. Nothing else can do what it can do. Once it's gone, we're going to be paralyzed.