Category: quotes
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“Shoot for the stars but if you happen to miss, shoot for the moon instead.”
– Neil A Armstrong (5 August 1930 – 25 August 2012) The first human to stand on the Moon! What a guy! With Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins in lunar orbit, the first two human beings to stand somewhere that isn’t the Earth. Did he say the above quote? Whether he did or didn’t what does…
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“Because they are so long-lived, atoms really get around. Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you.”
― Bill Bryson, A Really Short History of Nearly Everything The rest of the paragraph from his book is really awesome and inspiring, it goes: “We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms—up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested—probably…
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“Vita ex pulvis. We are made from the dust of dead stars.”
— Christopher Paolini, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Go to the bottom of this post to read about this incredible image of the Cone Nebula Credit The full quote is: “Have you ever considered the fact that everything we are originates from the remnants of stars that once exploded?” Jorrus said, “Vita ex…
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“Above me shone the stars, for the night was very clear.”
Wells, H.G.. The Time Machine: with Illustrations (Classic Collection Book 22) (p. 63). Kindle Edition. The great H.G. Wells, in The Time Machine, goes on to state: “I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in their twinkling. All the old constellations had gone from the sky, however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in…
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“I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re sceptical.”
― Arthur C. Clarke (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) Science fiction author, futurist, sceptic, science proponent and all-round quotable guy – but did he say this? QI isn’t sure! Whether he said it or not, is not the issue. It’s whether astrology is true or not – and how people react, behave and treat…
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“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.”
The full quote goes: “It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the…
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“While [Thales] was studying the stars and looking upwards, he fell into a pit, and a neat, witty Thracian servant girl jeered at him, they say, because he was so eager to know the things in the sky that he could not see what was there before him at his very feet.”
![“While [Thales] was studying the stars and looking upwards, he fell into a pit, and a neat, witty Thracian servant girl jeered at him, they say, because he was so eager to know the things in the sky that he could not see what was there before him at his very feet.”](https://stargazingguy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/the_eclipse_of_thales_historical_eclipses.png?w=1024)
Plato, Theaetetus, 174a (trans. H. N. Fowler)Thales (624/623 BC – c548/545 BC) Thales – the father of science. According to Herodotus, Thales predicted the solar eclipse of 28 May 585 BC. The appearance of the eclipse was interpreted as an omen and interrupted a battle in a long-standing war between the Medes and the Lydians.…
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“The church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church.”
– Misattributed to Ferdinand Magellan (4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) Yes, another misattribution! Surely a misattribution of the moment: Magellan didn’t say it, but it’s still brilliant, “shadow on the Moon”. Credit: https://depositphotos.com/64932777/stock-photo-moon-phases-from-crescent-to.html So, who did say it? Also, is it true, what can the earth’s shadow on the moon tell you about…
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“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore …”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Nature and Selected Essays In his poem, Emerson puts forth the view that they would be regarded with great wonder and remembered and discussed for years to come. They would be recognized as a sign of God. Not every one agrees with this view, some think the human response would…
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“If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
![“If I have seen further [than others], it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”](https://stargazingguy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/depositphotos_257481036_xl.jpg?w=1024)
– Sir Isaac Newton PRS (25 December 1642 – 1726/27)* Newton was relatively modest about his achievements, writing in a letter to Robert Hooke in February 1676, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” In a later memoir, Newton wrote, “I do not know what I may appear…
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