The Universe

“We need a continuing presence in space.”

“... I believe that space exploration is part of building the future ...”

“Well, we knocked the bastard off!”

“One might think that through ecstasy we would have access to a world as far from reality as that of the dream. – The repugnant can become desirable, affection cruelty, the ugly beautiful, faults qualities, qualities black miseries.”

“[to] think, in a certain way, of the power and severity of Romanesque paintings.. .Go to the beach and make graphic signs in the sand, draw by pissing on the dry ground, design in space by recording the songs of the birds, the sounds of water and wind.. ..and the chant of insects.”

“I acknowledge that the sacrament of the altar is very God's body in form of bread, but it is in another manner God's body than it is in heaven.”

“Father, let me have the Bull of Heaven<br />To kill Gilgamesh and his city.<br />For if you do not grant me the Bull of Heaven,<br />I will pull down the Gates of Hell itself,<br />Crush the doorposts and flatten the door,<br />And I will let the dead leave<br />And let the dead roam the earth<br />And they shall eat the living.<br />The dead will overwhelm all the living!”

“Can there be joy and laughter When always the world is ablaze? Enshrouded in darkness Should you not seek a light?”

“When you're on Earth, if you go to the top of a mountain, the stars look much brighter than they do at sea level. And because the space shuttle is above Earth's atmosphere, it's like being on a very, very high mountain. So they look brighter, but not bigger.”

“At the present time man's path lies through space, and Suprematism is a colour metaphor in its infinite abyss. [1916]”

“How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among their friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.”

“We could figure out ways with small aerospace companies to do a low-cost spacecraft and lander. But we could not find a way to do a low-cost launcher, unless we went to the Russians.”

“..[that] the overturning of the old world of arts will be etched across your 'palms' (recto)”

“Personally, I regard alcohol, used in moderation, as a medicine in the Polar regions. ... It is another matter on sledge journeys: there ... alcohol must be banished ... on account of the weight and space. ... Two men who have fallen out a little in the course of the week are reconciled at once by the scent of rum; the past is forgotten, and they start afresh in friendly co-operation.”

“The world is nearly all parcelled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised. To think of these stars that you see overhead at night, these vast worlds which we can never reach. I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far.”

“While standing on top of Everest, I looked across the valley, towards the other great peak, Makalu, and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed… it showed me that, even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything for me, by any means. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.”

“O man of Shurrupak, son of Ubara-Tutu; tear down your house and build a boat, abandon possessions and look for life, despise worldly goods and save your soul alive. Tear down your house, I say, and build a boat.”

“By robbing Peter he paid Paul, … and hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall.”

“The English have loudly and openly told the world that skis and dogs are unusable in these regions and that fur clothes are rubbish. We shall see — we shall see.”

“Tereshkova was the first woman in space. She completed 48 orbits of the Earth, she spent 2 days 22 hrs 50 mins in space during her first and only orbital mission, she is – to date – the only woman to fly solo beyond our atmosphere and she is still the youngest woman ever to enter space, aged just 26 years.”

“A Bird cannot fly with one wing only. Human space flight cannot develop any further without active participation of women... If women can be railroad workers in Russia, why can't they fly in space?”

“No way that any astronaut worth his salt volunteered for the space program to become a hero. You don't select astronauts who want fame and fortune. You select them because they're the best test pilots in the world, they know it, and it's a personal challenge for them. And the astronauts of today are exactly the same.”

“Come abitante temporanea di un avamposto umano nello spazio, condividerò la prospettiva orbitale e condurrò virtualmente nello spazio tutti quelli che vorranno prendere parte a questo viaggio.<br>translation: As a temporary inhabitant of a human outpost in space, I will share the orbital perspective and virtually lead into space all those who want to take part in this journey.”

“When you're getting ready to launch into space, you're sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen. So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion — because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there's not very much you can do.”

“The holy war or jihad against them had led ‘to the spontaneous profession of the true faith by great numbers of infidels and their families . . . the positive duty of all Musalmans to take up arms for the advancement of Islam; and by expatiating on the favour which they will by so doing, acquire with God, with his Prophet, and with the Muhammadan world at large.’”

“Though its fame is much restricted by its specialized nature, there is no doubt that Panini's grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any ancient civilization, and the most detailed and scientific grammar composed before the 19th century in any part of the world.”

“One was the Internet, one was clean energy and one was space.”

“The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse. For in former times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who sought to emigrate would arrive; and the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean beyond us, is seldom entered by a sail from our world.”

“There might be very primitive life in our solar system — single-cell animals, that sort of thing. We may know the answer to that in five or ten years. There is very likely to be life in other solar systems, in planets around other stars. But we won't know about that for a long time.”

“When my pencil starts moving, it must be allowed its head or - bang! - nothing more happens.”

“If Federation — whether Imperial or of the world — should ever appear in a better light than at present there will be plenty of time to consider it. But for the present, let our colonies try to cultivate a still more brotherly feeling for each other, and the day will come when the sons of all the colonies can clasp hands and say truly, “We are Australians — we know no other land!””

“Let Earth and Heaven his timeless death deplore,<br />For both their worths shall equal him no more.”

“I live from day to day, and content myself with having enough to meet my present and ordinary needs; for the extraordinary, all the provision in the world could not suffice.”

“I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. ... If there be a God, I think that what he would like me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible.”

“We know today that form is always the product of an inquisitorial process of matter – the specific reaction of matter when subjected to the terrible coercion of space choking it on all sides, pressing and squeezing it out, producing the swellings that burst form it life to the exact limits of the rigorous contours of its own originality of reaction.”

“I would like to show you one of my favourite meals up here, which is a chicken with s, , and s. And I would like to try and put the ingredients together for you. See how it works in space.”

“Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity; to all appearances the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.”

“He who cares nothing for the good things of the world has dominion over them all.”

“"S. privately forced upon me his one breakfast biscuit, and would have given me another tonight had I allowed him. I do not suppose that anyone else in the world can thoroughly realise how much generosity and sympathy was shown by this; I DO, and BY GOD I shall never forget. Thousands of pounds would not have bought that one biscuit."”

“Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!”

“[T]he famous John Wickliffe, the Morning-Star of the Reformation.”

“One cannot deny the great role women have played in the world community. My flight was yet another impetus to continue this female contribution.”

“Nor, in truth, is it of little importance to prevent the suspicion of any difference having arisen between us from being handed down in any way to our posterity; for it is worse than absurd that parties should be found disagreeing on the very principles, after we have been compelled to make our departure from the world.”

“For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the, flood was stilled; I looked at the face of the world and there was silence, all mankind was turned to clay.”

“Of the 16 years that I have been living in Germany, I have given myself entirely to the German art world. How am I now suddenly supposed to feel myself a foreigner?”

“Old Mathews drank to drown sorrow, which is the strongest swimmer in the world.”

“Nothing is more difficult than arriving at a court where nobody knows anyone in the world, add to that the Austrian Etiquette, and you can imagine what kind of evening I had to endure.”

“The world, and whatever that be which we call the heavens, by the vault of which all things are enclosed, we must conceive to be a deity, to be eternal, without bounds, neither created nor subject at any time to destruction. To inquire what is beyond it is no concern of man; nor can the human mind form any conjecture concerning it.”

“When the school children of Australia are told more truths about their own country, and fewer lies about the virtues of Royalty, the day will be near when we can place our own national flag in one of the proudest places among the ensigns of the world.”

“God Shiva and his mountain bride,<br>Like word and meaning unified,<br>The world's great parents, I beseech<br>To join fit meaning to my speech.”

“I have only one goal and one desire, namely to give myself a practical instruction, to get to know the world and its inhabitants. There will come times when this knowledge will be of use to me.”

“I am quite incapable of doing them [making landscapes], even the shadow. My trees look like spinach and my sea like heaven knows what.. ..[the Mediterranean landscape was] the devil to paint, precisely because it is so beautiful.”

“The grammar of Panini is one of the most remarkable literary works that the world has ever seen, and no other country can produce any grammatical system at all comparable to it, either for originality of plan or analytical subtlety.”

“I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It's fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it's tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space.”

“The coolest thing for me is the experience of floating and not feeling my weight. And hanging by a window just after sunset and watching the stars in the big black dome of the sky as the earth moves underneath.”

“Having just paid our respects to the highest mountain in the world, I then had no choice but to urinate on it.”

“It was starting to get dim outside, so you got to see your own reflection. And there is the Earth, and you can still see the Earth’s surface and the dark sky overhead. And I could then see my reflection in the window and in the retina of my eye the whole earth and the sky could be seen reflected. So I called all the crew members one by one and they saw it, and they said, 'oh wow'.”

“You cannot be buried in obscurity: you are exposed upon a grand theater to the view of the world. If your actions are upright and benevolent, be assured they will augment your power and happiness.”