Carolyn Porco Quotes

The true scientist never loses the faculty of amazement.

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.

You should enter science because you are fascinated by it. That's what I did.

One might say science is the sum total of our knowledge of the universe, the great library of the known, but the practice of science happens at the border between the known and the unknown. Standing on the shoulders of giants, we peer into the darkness with eyes opened not in fear but in wonder.

When you study natural science and the miracles of creation, if you don't turn into a mystic you are not a natural scientist.

One (practitioner of science) is the educated man who still has a controlled sense of wonder before the universal mystery, whether it hides in a snail's eye or within the light that impinges on that delicate organ.

Science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.

There is inspiration all around us.

I always said I wanted to be scientist, but I didn't really have the staying power.

I can't ever remember not wanting to be a scientist.

People don't learn science in movies. You don't go to the movies thinking, 'I hope I learn some quantum mechanics this afternoon.' But on the other hand, movies are instrumental and influential in getting young people interested in science.

My interest in science started in junior high school where an outstanding science teacher, Mrs. Baumgardner, introduced me to the joys of science.

For me, the reason why people go to a mountaintop or go to the edge of the ocean is to look at something larger than themselves. That feeling of awe, of going to a cathedral, it's all about feeling lost in something bigger than oneself. To me, that's the definition of spectacle.

I grew up thinking that a research scientist was a natural thing to be.

If you're talking to a child, you're going, 'This is the wonder of science and here's why I'm so fascinated by it.'

All I know is that I am constantly intrigued by something I'm doing.

Science gave me a cosmic religious feeling, and I would get the same feeling when I was dragged to the Met and the Museum of Modern Art.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

I hope I've lived a life of science whose style will encourage younger people.

You can only go into science because you're interested in it.

I want to go into science class and awaken that spark that makes learning possible.

I get inspiration from a lot of things around me - nature, hills, people, and even insects.

I'm inspired by breath, by the human body - by so many things.

Faced with an exciting question, science tended to provide the dullest possible answer. Ions might charge the air but they fell flat when it came to charging the imagination - my imagination, anyway.

Beauty can inspire miracles.