The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

To be more childlike, you don’t have to give up being an adult. The fully integrated person is capable of being both an adult and a child simultaneously. Recapture the childlike feelings of wide-eyed excitement, spontaneous appreciation, cutting loose, and being full of awe and wonder at this magnificent universe.

It now appears that the way the universe began can indeed be determined, using imaginary time.

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.

Historically, the stuff of the universe goes on becoming concentrated into ever more organized forms of matter.

It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses.

Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

There is nothing your highest self wants more than peace. This peace makes you feel worthy of all of the richest blessings of the universe, and when you radiate this out into the world, it is returned to you without fail.

We think that life develops spontaneously on Earth, so it must be possible for life to develop on suitable planets elsewhere in the universe. But we don’t know the probability that a planet develops life.

Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.

In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

Cosmology is a rapidly advancing field.

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

The gigantic tension before the shooting of an arrow, and the total relaxation seconds later, is my way of connecting to the universe.

The study and knowledge of the universe would somehow be lame and defective were no practical results to follow.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

The universe is not indifferent to our existence – it depends on it.

Even Hubble hasn’t found yet the end of this universe, and we don’t know that it has any end.

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

The universe can take quite a while to deliver.

I’m an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call ‚the last illusion.‘ The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what’s going on but that the planets know what’s going on.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.

Observations indicate that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate. It will expand forever, getting emptier and darker.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

The centre of the system of the world is immovable.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

The universe is very large, and its boundaries are not known very well, but it is still possible to define some kind of a radius to be associated with it.

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.

What goes on inside a star is better understood than one might guess from the difficulty of having to look at a little dot of light through a telescope, because we can calculate what the atoms in the stars should do in most circumstances.

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

I was born on January 8, 1942, exactly three hundred years after the death of Galileo. I estimate, however, that about two hundred thousand other babies were also born that day. I don’t know whether any of them was later interested in astronomy.

I put up my thumb and it blotted out the planet Earth.

Once you feel loved by the universe, you’re already accepted, and you’re not really concerned about offending people.

For NASA, space is still a high priority.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

There could be shadow galaxies, shadow stars, and even shadow people.

We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

The moon gravitates towards the earth and by the force of gravity is continually drawn off from a rectilinear motion and retained in its orbit.

I walk every day, and I look at the mountains and the fields and the small city, and I say: ‚Oh my God, what a blessing.‘ Then you realise it’s important to put it in a context beyond this woman, this man, this city, this country, this universe.

And yet it moves.

This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.

Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we’re atheist. Our existence is beyond our understanding. No one has an answer.

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.

I’m in awe of the universe, but I don’t necessarily believe there’s an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

I am not the first Buddha who came upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time, another Buddha will arise in the world – a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals.

Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.

In the divine milieu, all the elements of the universe touch each other by that which is most inward and ultimate in them. There they concentrate, little by little, all that is purest and most attractive in them without loss and without danger of subsequent corruption.

To the dumb question, ‚Why me?‘ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, ‚Why not?‘

One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

Throughout history, people have studied pure science from a desire to understand the universe rather than practical applications for commercial gain. But their discoveries later turned out to have great practical benefits.

Modern science says: ‚The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.‘ From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

The ultimate connection is when you are connected to the creator of the universe.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.