If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others. Philip K Dick
Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science. Edwin Hubble
Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming. J B S Haldane, Possible World
Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book which ever is before our eyes – I mean the universe – but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth. Galileo Galilei
Scientists talk about dark matter, the invisible, mysterious substance that occupies the space between stars. Dark matter makes up 99.99 percent of the universe, and they don't know what it is. Well I do. It's apathy. That’s the truth of it; pile together everything we know and care about in the universe and it will still be nothing more than a tiny speck in the middle of a vast black ocean of Who Gives a Fuck. David Wong, John Dies at the End
These atoms now form a conglomerate – your brain – that can not only ponder the very stars that gave it birth but can also think about its own ability to think and wonder about its own ability to wonder. With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, it the greatest mystery of all. V S Ramachandran, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human
How can a three-pound mass of jelly that you can hold in your palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning of infinity, and even question its own place in the cosmos? Especially awe inspiring is the fact that any single brain, including yours, is made up of atoms that were forged in the hearts of countless, far-flung stars billions of years ago. These particles drifted for eons and light-years until gravity and change brought them together here, now. These atoms now form a conglomerate – your brain – that can not only ponder the very stars that gave it birth but can also think about its own ability to think and wonder about its own ability to wonder. With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, it the greatest mystery of all. ibid.
It is also worth noting that one can obtain a Phd in any branch of science for no other purpose than to make cynical use of scientific language in an effort to rationalize the glaring inadequacies of the Bible. A handful of Christians appear to have done this; some have even obtained their degrees from reputable universities. No doubt, others will follow in their footsteps. While such people are technically ‘scientists’, they are not behaving like scientists. They simply are not engaged in an honest inquiry into the nature of the universe. And their proclamations about God and the failures of Darwinism do not in the least signify that there is a legitimate scientific controversy about evolution. Sam Harris, The End of Faith
We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centred or man-centred (let alone God-centred) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge. Christopher Hitchens
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of Tragedy. Steven Weinberg
There’s every reason to expect that in the different big bangs that occur you will have different conditions, different values, for what we call the Fundamental Constants. So the fact that the Constants of Nature are suitable for life which is clearly true we observe may not be a universal fact, may be an accident. Steven Weinberg, interview Professor Richard Dawkins
I am really not impressed with the amount of fine tuning there is, with the exception of this one – dark energy. ibid.
The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. Steven Weinberg
As we learn more and more about the universe, it seems not such a friendly place. Steven Weinberg, interview Jonathan Miller, The Atheism Tapes, BBC 2004
Planets: some of them are going to be comfortable. ibid.
Intelligence is a relatively late arrival in the universe. Jonathan Miller: A Brief History of Unbelief III: The Final Hour, BBC 2004
There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable – unobservable in principle – it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality – it’s just a figment of our imaginations. Leonard Susskind, The Black Hole War
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. John Muir
When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe. John Muir
Astronomical distances have the air of a conjuring trick. The vastness of cosmic dimensions fills us with astonishment. Yet like a conjuring trick it all looks very obvious when we see how it was done. Fred Hoyle, Frontiers of Astronomy
I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside stars. Fred Hoyle
In the beginning I thought this was pretty bad for the theory ... It’s a completely open question today I believe as to whether this background really comes from the general universe or whether it comes from sources in the general manner of radio-astronomy. Fred Hoyle, The Violent Universe, BBC 1969
As you probably know there are two forms of cosmology: what has been spoken of as the Big Bang and the Steady State. Fred Hoyle, The Cosmologists, BBC 1963
But they don’t give any physical description of what causes them to begin ... The universe itself didn’t have to have a beginning. ibid.
Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe. Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas 1933
The universe and I exist together. And all things and I are one. Chuang-Tzu
The entire universe started off as a hot fireball and it cooled down, and after about half a billion years our universe entered a literal dark age. The universe stayed dark until the first stars formed and lit it up again. Martin Rees
This does of course raise the other question – if there’s been enough time for man to evolve, what’s the chance of there having been life evolved around other stars? Martin Rees
The universe, the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal, that is to say body, and hath the dimensions of magnitude – length, breadth and depth. Every part of the universe is body, and that which is not body is no part of the universe. Thomas Hobbes
I think our entire universe is a giant mathematical structure that we are a part of. Max Tegmark
The universe is a million billion light years wide, and every inch of it would kill you if you went there. Martin Amis
One of the greatest shocks in the world of cosmology just in the last few years has been the realisation that our universe is accelerating. Michio Kaku
The betting is, the universe will die in ice. Michio Kaku
The universe seems to be careening out of control. This expansion is accelerating. It’s kicking in once again. Michio Kaku
The fundamental problem of cosmology is that the laws of physics as we know them break down at the instant of the Big Bang. Well, some people say, What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with having the laws of physics collapse? For a physicist this is a disaster! All our lives we’ve dedicated to the proposition that the universe obeys noble laws. Laws that can be written down in the language of mathematics. And here we have the centrepiece of the universe itself – a centrepiece – beyond physical law. Michio Kaku
The cosmic microwave background is the echo of creation itself. It’s the embers, the afterglow of the original shockwave that created the universe. If we had microwave eyes, eyes that could see microwave radiation, then every night we would see the Big Bang coming out. Looking at the heavens, we would actually see an explosion ... The discovery of the microwave background radiation ranks as one of the greatest discoveries in all of science. Michio Kaku
All of a sudden we realised the universe is a symphony, and the laws of physics are harmonies of a superstring. Michio Kaku