“I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro
of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the Earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself
and take my fill of ambrosia, food of the gods. “ -Claudius Ptolemy
“When thou cam’st first, thou stroked me and made much of me; woulds’t give me water with berries in’t;
and teach me how to name the bigger light, and how the less, that burn by day and night; and then I loved
thee and showed thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle.” -William Shakespeare
“Astronomy compels us to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.” -Plato
"How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story 'Nightfall,' about the planet
where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who
can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen."
- Roger Ebert, from a movie review in the "Chicago Sun Times"
