Quotes about the universe

A grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it.

Maybe it’s time we humans abandoned our species-specific chauvinism—our petty outrage that the Universe has unfolded in a way that doesn’t suit us.

Empty. Barren. These were the true conditions of the Universe, she thought; life, and variety, and energy, were isolated aberrations.

It was too anthropomorphic to consider the lifecycle of a star as some analogy of human birth, life and death. A star was a construct of physical processes; the evolution it went through was simply a search for equilibrium stages between changing, opposing forces. There was no life or death involved, no loss or gain: just process.

Why shouldn’t it be beautiful?

The only things in my life that compatibly exist with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.

"One thing more, son. Do you believe in God?"

Slowly Frost put the spoon back into the bowl.

He asked: "You really want an answer?"

"I want an answer," said the man. "I want an honest one."

"The answer," said Frost, "is that I don't know. Not, certainly, in the kind of God that you are thinking of. Not the old white-whiskered, woodcut gentleman. But a supreme being — yes, I would believe in a God of that sort. Because it seems to me there must be some sort of force or power or will throughout the universe. The universe is too orderly for it to be otherwise. When you measure all this orderliness, from the mechanism of the atom at one end of the scale, out to the precision of the operation of the universe at the other end, it seems unbelievable that there is not a supervisory force of some kind, a benevolent ruling force to maintain that sort of order."

You sometimes get a thrill at knowing where you are. You’re often filled with wonder, but more often you are puzzled. You are reminded, again and yet again, of how insignificant you are. And there are times when you forget that you are human. You’re just a blob of life—brother to everything that ever existed or ever will exist.

Before Man goes to the stars he should learn how to live on Earth.

The sentient may perceive and love the universe, but the universe cannot perceive and love the sentient.

“By and large, conventional religion, as many humans accept it, is illogical in its attempt to conceive of entities lying outside the Universe. Since the Universe comprises everything, it is evident that nothing can lie outside it. The idea of a ‘god’ creating the Universe is a mechanistic absurdity clearly derived from the making of machines by men. I take it that we are in agreement about all this.”

It isn’t the Universe that’s following our logic, it’s we that are constructed in accordance with the logic of the Universe. And that gives what I might call a definition of intelligent life: something that reflects the basic structure of the Universe.

No matter where I go in the world, although I can't speak any foreign language, I don't feel out of place. I think of the earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is, and they would put an end to it. We are, after all, at a point where it is almost narrow-minded to think merely in geocentric terms. Human beings have launched satellites into outer space, and yet they still grovel on earth looking at their own feet like wild dogs. What is to become of our planet?