98 Best Astronomy Quotes That Reach For The Stars

Astronomy refers to the study of the cosmos.

Those who study astronomy are called astronomers. Astronomers also study the celestial bodies and the universe.

Astronomy is one of the oldest subjects among the natural sciences and has been studied since the earliest civilizations. Thus, the fact that there are many astronomy quotes should be no surprise. Let's take a look at some of them.

If you find our content interesting then do check out sun and moon quotes and star quotes.

Best Astronomical Quotes

Here are some of the finest quotes on our solar system, the atmosphere and cosmology by scientists, and documentary series quotes by Christian Huygens.

1."In my studies of astronomy and philosophy I hold this opinion about the universe, that the Sun remains fixed in the centre of the circle of heavenly bodies, without changing its place; and the Earth, turning upon itself, moves round the Sun."

- Galileo Galilei.

2. "The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs."

- Marcus Tullius Cicero.

3. "Chances are, when we meet intelligent life forms in outer space they're going to be descended from predators."

- Michio Kaku.

4. "Astronomy, as nothing else can do, teaches men humility."

-Arthur C. Clarke.

5. "Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a God, but a great rock, and the sun a hot rock."

- Anaxagoras.

6. "For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God."

- John Calvin.

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

- Stephen Hawking.

8. "The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."

- Carl Sagan.

9. "For every one billion particles of antimatter, there were one billion and one particles of matter."

- Albert Einstein.

10. "Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter."

- Albert Einstein.

11. "I don’t think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years, unless we spread into space... But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."

- Stephen Hawking

12. "One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist."

- Stephen Hawking.

13. "Earth is a small town with many neighborhoods in a very big universe."

- Ron Garan.

14. "The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic."

- Alexi Leonov.

15. "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. "

- Neil Armstrong.

16. "I know the sky is not the limit because there are footprints on the Moon — and I made some of them!"

- Buzz Aldrin.

17. "Never limit yourself because of others' limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination."

- Mae Jemison.

18. "Space is for everybody. It’s not just for a few people in science or math, or for a select group of astronauts."

- Christa McAuliffe.

19. "I believe that space travel will one day become as common as airline travel is today."

- Buzz Aldrin.

20. "I try to forget what happiness was, and when that don't work, I study the stars."

- Derek Walcott.

21. "Astronomy is not the apex of science or of invention. But it is a test of the cast of temperament and mind that underlies a culture."

- Jacob Bronowski.

22. "I have… A terrible need… Shall I say the word? Of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars."

- Vincent Van Gogh.

23. "Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded...It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust."

- Lawrence Krauss.

24. "We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them..."

- Mark Twain.

25. "It is far better to grasp the universe as it is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying it may be."

- Carl Sagan.

26. "For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God."

-John Calvin.

27. "It does not at first appear that an astronomer rapt in abstraction, while he gazes on a star, must feel more exquisite delight than a farmer who is conducting his team."

-Isaac D'Israeli.

28. "The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it."

-Anatole France.

29. "Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!"

-Gerard Manley Hopkins.

30. "And God made two great lights, great for their use

To man, the greater to have rule by day,

The less by night, altern."

-John Milton.

31. "Astronomy is useful because it raises us above ourselves; it is useful because it is grand… It shows us how small is man’s body…."

-Henri Poincaré.

32. "These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights

That give a name to every fixed star

Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk, and wot not what they are."

-William Shakespeare.

33. "The strongest affection and utmost zeal should, I think, promote the studies concerned with the most beautiful objects. This is the discipline that deals with the universe’s divine revolutions, the stars’ motions, sizes, distances, risings, and settings . . . for what is more beautiful than heaven?"

-Nicolaus Copernicus.

34. "Devotion! Daughter of Astronomy!

An undevout Astronomer is mad."

-Edward Young.

35. "I open my scuttle at night and see the far sprinkled systems,

And all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but rim of the farthest systems."

- Walt Whitman.

36. "Moon in the sky, stars out, the wide-open expanse of nothing: it made him feel free and alive as the daytime never did."

-Chuck Wendig.

Inspirational Astronomical Quotes

Enlisted below are the inspirational quotes by Martin Rees, Arthur C. Clarke, quotes on speciation events, the cold and material creation of a human being by Timothy Ferris, cosmology quotes by Ransom K Ferm, Tennyson and Sarah Williams.

37. "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."

-John Calvin.

38. "Dark matter has a gravitation effect on other objects. You can't see it, you can't feel it, but you can watch something being pulled in its direction."

-Jodi Picoult.

39. "Compared to a star, we are like mayflies, fleeting ephemeral creatures who live out their lives in the course of a single day."

-Carl Sagan.

40. "Two thousand years ago the night sky looked completely different."

-Jodi Picoult.

41. "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."

-Ferdinand Magellan.

42. "High-luminosity stars are the rarest. In any given volume of space, they're outnumbered by the low-luminosity stars a thousand to one."

-Neil deGrasse Tyson

43. "The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons."

-Edwin P Hubble.

44. "Discover the force of the skies O Men: once recognized it can be put to use."

-Johannes Kepler.

45. "By looking far out into space we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe, back toward the epoch of the Big Bang."

-Carl Sagan.

46. "People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe."

-Neil deGrasse Tyson.

47. "The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space."

-Lord Byron.

48. "Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns."

-Carl Sagan.

49. "The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star."

-Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.

50. "Stars are beautiful, but they must not take an active part in anything, they must just look on forever."

-J.M. Barrie.

51. "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore...But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson.

52. "We should do astronomy because it is beautiful and because it is fun. We should do it because people want to know. We want to know our place in the universe and how things happen."    

-John N. Bahcall.

53. "The fact that astronomies change while the stars abide is a true analogy of every realm of human life and thought, religion not least of all."    

-Harry Emerson Fosdick.

54. "Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is."    

-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.

55. "The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth."    

-Richard P. Feynman.

56. "The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons."    

-Edwin P Hubble.

57. "The thing I like about astronomy is being outside at night and seeing the stars in a dark sky. It makes you feel small."    

-Jimmy Walker.

58. "Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, the mad daughter of a wise mother."

-Voltaire.

59. "Astronomy is the science of the harmony of infinite expanse."

- John Scott Russell.

60. "A time will come when men will stretch out their eyes. They should see planets like our Earth."

- Christopher Wren.

61. "Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another."

- Plato.

62. "Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

63. "The stars, like dust, encircle me In living mists of light; And all of space I seem to see In one vast burst of sight."

- Isaac Asimov.

64. "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."

- Plato.

65. "These earthly godfathers of Heaven’s lights, that give a name to every fixed star, have no more profit of their shining nights than those that walk and know not what they are."

- William Shakespeare.

Best Quotes By Astrophysicists

Here are some of the best quotes on cosmology by the greatest astrophysicists.

66. "To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."

- Stephen Hawking.

67. "Our feeblest 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, or falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries."

- Carl Sagan.

68. "Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science."

- Edwin Hubble.

69. "Astronomy taught us our insignificance in Nature."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

70. "Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe."

- Maria Mitchell.

71. "The purpose of life is the investigation of the Sun, the Moon, and the heavens."

- Anaxagoras.

72. "Man must rise above the Earth—to the top of the atmosphere and beyond—for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives."

- Socrates.

73. "We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out."

- Neil deGrasse Tyson.

74. "There wouldn’t be a sky full of stars if we were all meant to wish on the same one."

- Frances Clark.

75. "I am a child of the Milky Way. The night is my mother. I am made of the dust of stars."

- Chet Raymo.

76. "The whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty."

- John Muir.

77. "The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest."

- Annie Dillard.

78. "All humans are brothers. We came from the same supernova."

- Allan Sandage.

79. "This is the greatest damn thing about the universe, that we can know so much, recognize so much, dissect, do everything, and we can’t grasp it."

- Henry Miller.

80. "If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are abloom with flowers."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

81. "Everything in the universe is a pitcher brimming with wisdom and beauty."

- Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī.

82. "Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all."

- Vincent van Gogh.

83. "The light of all the not yet stars

Drifting like a bright mist..."

- Rebecca Elson.

84. "You’re not in the universe, you are the universe."

- Eckhart Tolle.

85. "Mingle the starlight with your lives and you won’t be fretted by trifles."

- Maria Mitchell.

86. "Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding,

Outward and outward, forever outward."

-Walt Whitman.

Quotes On The Sun, Moon And The Planets

Here you will find the best quotes for our solar system.

87. "If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago

He would've thought they were birds

Or angels from another world

Or messengers from other planets."

-Dejan Stojanovic.

88. "Could it be that the planets are castaway heads."

-Visar Zhiti.

89. "He lost himself in the words and images conjured in his mind and for a while forgot ... He found himself flying among stars and planets."

- Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

90. "Science has rolled its war wagons over the crushed myths of so many religious beliefs. It has marshaled its mechanics to explain the motions of the sun, moon, and stars."

- Walker Evans.

91. "... a country encapsulates our childhood and those lanes, byres, fields, flowers, insects, suns, moons and stars are forever reoccurring."

- Edna O'Brien.

92. "Clearly I know, the mind is mountains, rivers, and the great earth; sun, moon, and stars."

- Dogen.

93. "My roses are my jewels; the sun, moon, and stars my clocks; fruit and water my fare."

- Lady Hester Stanhope.

94. "The Word of God is the universal and invisible Light, cognizable by the senses, that emits its blaze in the Sun, Moon, Planets, and other Stars."

- Albert Pike.

95. "The day, water, sun, moon, night - I do not have to purchase these things with money."

- Plautus.

96. "The Sun, Moon and Stars are there to guide us."

-Dennis Banks.

97. "If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they'd immediately go out."

-William Blake.

98. "Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun."

- John Lennon.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for astronomy quotes then why not take a look at [moon landing quotes], or [outer space quotes]