09/07/2026
A Useful Tool for Public Speaking
Astro Quotes to Remember
Reciting a pithy quote is a great tool when communicating astronomy concepts to the public. Plus, they often make you seem smart even if that is not really the case. Quote wisely.
Plato. "Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another."
Isaac Newton, 1675. "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Simon Newcomb, astronomer and astronomy popularizer, 1888. "We are probably nearing the limit of all we can know about astronomy."
Brian May. "Astronomy is much more fun when you're not an astronomer."
Carl Sagan, via journalist Sharon Begley, 1977. "Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be discovered."
William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, "I am constant as the northern star."
Christiaan Huygens. "Believe anything very certainly, but everything very probably."
Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Bohemia, "You see but do not observe."
Heraclitus. "No one can step in the same river twice."
Enrico Fermi, 1950, referring to the likelihood of intelligent extraterrestrial life, "Where is everybody."
Yogi Berra. "It gets late early out there."
Neil deGrasse Tyson. "The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980. "We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself."
Garrett Serviss, Astronomy with an Opera Glass, 1888. "Always avoid the neighborhood of any bright light. Electric lights in particular are an abomination to stargazers."
George E. Hale. "Make no small plans. Dream no small dreams."