Wisdom cannot be directly transmitted, and does not readily accumulate through the ages.

We do not know why we are born into the world, but we can try to find out what sort of a world it is - at least in its physical aspects.

All nature is a vast symbolism: Every material fact has sheathed within it a spiritual truth.

Past time is finite, future time is infinite.

The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.

The universe is unfolding as it should.

I knew that even if I were second or third rate, it was astronomy that mattered.

Science is the one human activity that is truly progressive. The body of positive knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation.

Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.

The great spirals, with their enormous radial velocities and insensible proper motions, apparently lie outside our Solar system.

There we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial.

Your best dreams happen when you wake up.

Her beauty is untouchable.

I gave the couple a hint of a design that would work great with the bones of their home. They weren't ready for it, and they embarrassed themselves and that's too bad.

Here in Barcelona, it's the architects who built the buildings that made the city iconic who are the objects of admiration - not a bunch of half-witted monarchs.

For me, writing a short story is much, much harder than writing a novel.

I played with the best conductors of the world.

Technical things are getting more mechanical. Take 'Swan Lake,' the Black Swan pas de deux. Now, my goodness, they're turning not just 32 fouettes - but double or triple pirouettes.

Russia's partners should understand it's best not to mess with us.

Beadle believed that genetics were inseparable from chemistry-more precisely, biochemistry. They were, he said, "two doors leading to the same room."

White lies always introduce others of a darker complexion.