Ken Jennings Quotes

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

The perimeter of the earth is about 3,000,000 stadia and not greater.

If geography is prose, maps are iconography.

I like geography. I like to know where places are.

The ocean is the last frontier of human empirical knowledge; even the contours on that eighth-grader's globe are the product of a mix of scientific measurement, inference and conjecture.

Cartography and geographic thinking are cool.

The black man in Africa had mastered the arts and sciences. He knew the course of the stars in the universe before the man up in Europe knew that the earth wasn't flat.

There was a time when a man was so convinced that the world was round that he was determined to prove it.

A borrowed light, circular in form, it revolves about the earth, as if following the track of a chariot.

Anaximander the Milesian, a disciple of Thales, first dared to draw the inhabited world on a tablet; after him Hecataeus the Milesian, a much-travelled man, made the map more accurate, so that it became a source of wonder.

I propose to construct a new chart for navigating, on which I shall delineate all the sea and lands of the Ocean in their proper positions under their bearings; and further, I propose to prepare a book, and to put down all as it were in a picture, by latitude from the equator, and western longitude.

I wanted to be a topographer when I was young.

The earliest maps were 'story' maps. Cartographers were artists who mingled knowledge with supposition, memory and fears. Their maps described both landscape and the events, which had taken place within it, enabling travellers to plot a route as well as to experience a story.

As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, and unapproachable bogs.

I've always been fascinated by maps and cartography. A map tells you where you've been, where you are, and where you're going -- in a sense it's three tenses in one.

I have always preferred maps to books. They don't answer you back.

The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.

The children would remember for the rest of their lives the august solemnity with which their father, devastated by his prolonged vigil and by the wraith of his imagination, revealed his discovery to them: 'The world is round, like an orange.

The world of maps is nice and flat and simple. It has areas for people and areas for monsters. What a shock it is to discover the world is round and the areas merge and nothing separates the monsters and ourselves; that we are all whirling around in space together and there isn't even a graceful way of falling off.

In regard to the philosophers, if they be true philosophers, i.e., lovers of truth, they should not be irritated that the earth moves. Rather, if they realize that they have held a false belief, they should thank those have shown them the truth; and if their opinion stands firm that the earth doesn't move, they will have reason to boast than be angered.

Those interested in celestial navigation are advised to first obtain a rudimentary knowledge of integral calculus, phlebotomy, astral physics and related subjects. The use of liquor is strictly forbidden on interplanetary flights.

Apollo, sacred guard of earth's true core, Whence first came frenzied, wild prophetic word.

Switzerland would me a mighty big place if it were ironed flat.

Galileo - the father of modern physics - indeed of modern science.

Perhaps someday in the distant future, dinosaurs may once again rule the Earth. If they ever learn to watch the stars, then maybe they will find our ruins in the sky.