Leo Tolstoy Quotes

In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.

If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.

Science, philosophy and religion are bound to converge as they draw nearer to the whole.

If we do discover a complete theory, it should be in time understandable in broad principle by everyone. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people be able to take part in the discussion of why we and the universe exist.

When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything.

I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.

You can get an idea of human nature only when you can see the relationship of the individual human being to the whole cosmos.

All numbers are multiples of one, all sciences converge to a common point, all wisdom comes out of one center, and the number of wisdom is one.

Learn all from one thing. -Ab uno disce omnes

For in self-giving, if anywhere, we touch a rhythm not only of all creation but of all being.

We are all cells of a much larger body, and like the cells of our own body it is hard for us to glimpse the whole pattern of the whole of what is happening, and yet we can sense that there is a purpose, and there is a pattern.

We find great things are made of little things, And little things go lessening till at last Comes God behind them.

The time has come to realise that an interpretation of the universe—even a positivist one—remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world.

The parts of the universe ... all are connected with each other in such a way that I think it to be impossible to understand any one without the whole.

For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is here treated of but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. (on commenting the text of Genesis 1:6)

The connectedness of things is what the educator contemplates to the limit of his capacity. No human capacity is great enough to permit a vision of the world as simple, but if the educator does not aim at the vision no one else will, and the consequences are dire when no one does.

To know one thing thoroughly would be to know the universe.

No, My son, the evolutionists are not right. I created all of this-all of this-in the blink of an eye; in one holy instant-just as the creationists have said. And...it came about through a process of evolution taking billions and billions of what you call years, just as the evolutionists claim. They are both "right." As the cosmonauts discovered, it all depends on how you look at it.

The whole of the world could be deduced from the smallest grain of sand, if one studied it closely enough.

Either an ordered Universe or a medley heaped together mechanically but still an order; or can order subsist in you and disorder in the Whole! And that, too, when all things are so distinguished and yet intermingled and sympathetic.

I had a passion and love of learning and wisdom that was inseparable from a love of music and the arts. I've never viewed them in any way as being separable.

You will never find scientists leading armies into battle. You just won’t. Especially not astrophysicists -we see the biggest picture there is. We understand how small we are in the cosmos. We understand how fragile and temporary our existence is here on Earth. We understand there are bigger problems we need to solve as a species than what God you pray to.

We in astrophysics we think of the universe all the time. So to us, Earth is just another planet. From a distance, it's a speck. And I'm convinced that if everyone had a cosmic perspective you wouldn't have legions of armies waging war on other people because someone would say, "Stop, look at the universe."

Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?