The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Carl Sagan2 quotes
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. — Carl Sagan · 1980The cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be. Our contemplations of the cosmos stir us. There is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the grandest of mysteries. — Carl Sagan · 1980Douglas Adams2 quotes
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. — Douglas Adams · 1978There 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. — Douglas Adams · 1980Stephen Hawking2 quotes
What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?...Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? — Stephen Hawking · 1988If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-for then we would know the mind of God. — Stephen Hawking · 1988Steven Weinberg2 quotes
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy. — Steven Weinberg · 1977It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. — Steven Weinberg · 1977Anton Chekhov1 quote
But perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster. — Anton Chekhov · 1904Cormac McCarthy1 quote
The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others. — Cormac McCarthy · 1985Dante Alighieri1 quote
I saw within Its depth how It conceives
all things in a single volume bound by Love,
of which the universe is the scattered leaves. — Dante Alighieri · 1321David Foster Wallace1 quote
Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe. — David Foster Wallace · 2005David Hume1 quote
The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. — David Hume · 1776Giacomo Leopardi1 quote
The time will come when this universe and nature herself will be no more. And just as of very great human kingdoms and empires and of their marvelous exploits, which were so very famous in other ages, there remains no sign of fame whatsoever, so too of the entire world, and of the infinite vicissitudes and calamities of all created things, no single trace will remain, but a naked silence and a most profound quiet will fill the immensity of space. Thus, this stupendous and frightening mystery of universal existence, before it can be declared or understood, will vanish and be lost. — Giacomo Leopardi · 1835Giordano Bruno1 quote
He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns, not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds. — Giordano Bruno · 1584Hushpuppy1 quote
The whole universe depends on everything fitting together, just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece...the entire universe will get busted. — Hushpuppy · 2012J.B.S. Haldane1 quote
Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose... I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. — J.B.S. Haldane · 1927James Jeans1 quote
From the intrinsic evidence of his creation, the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician. — James Jeans · 1930James Thomson (B.V.)1 quote
I find no hint throughout the Universe
Of good or ill, of blessing or of curse;
I find alone Necessity Supreme. — James Thomson (B.V.) · 1874Johannes Kepler1 quote
I am much occupied with the investigation of physical causes. My aim in this is to show that the celestial machine is not similar to a divine animated being, but similar to a clock. — Johannes Kepler · 1605John Coltrane1 quote
I think the main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe. That's what music is to me-it's just another way of saying this is a big, beautiful universe we live in, that's been given to us, and here's an example of just how magnificent and encompassing it is. That’s what I would like to do. I think that’s one of the greatest things you can do in life, and we all try to do it in some way. The musician’s is through his music. — John Coltrane · 1962John H. Holmes1 quote
This universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent. — John H. Holmes · 1932John Muir1 quote
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. — John Muir · 1869Plotinus1 quote
One principle must make the universe a single complex living creature, one from all. — Plotinus · 270Stanley Kubrick1 quote
The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent. — Stanley Kubrick · 1968Werner Herzog1 quote
I believe the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder. — Werner Herzog · 2005Zhuang Zhou1 quote
The universe and I exist together, and all things and I are one. — Zhuang Zhou · 221 BC