Edwin Hubble Quotes

“A scientist naturally and inevitably mulls over the data and guesses at a solution. He proceeds to testing of the guess by new data-predicting the consequences of the guess and then dispassionately inquiring whether or not the predictions are verified.”

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

“Astronomy is something like the ministry. No one should go into it without a call. I got that unmistakable call, and I know that even if I were second-rate or third-rate, it was astronomy that mattered.”

“At the last dim horizon, we search among ghostly errors of observations for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. The urge is older than history. It is not satisfied and it will not be oppressed.”

“Equipped with our five senses – along with telescopes and microscopes and mass spectrometers and seismographs and magnetometers and particle accelerators and detectors sensitive to the entire electromagnetic spectrum – we explore the universe around us and call the adventure science.”

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

“The universe is unfolding as it should.”

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

“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.”

“We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe.”

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

“The outstanding feature, however, is the possibility that the velocity-distance relation may represent the de Sitter effect, and hence that numerical data may be introduced into discussions of the general curvature of space.”

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

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

“Past time is finite, future time is infinite.”

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

“Observations always involve theory.”

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

“The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.”

“With increasing distance, our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary — the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.”