The Turtle and the Stars- Quotes

I read this very interesting and inspiring book titled "The Turtle and Stars" by Arthur Upgren, who is a thoughtful astronomer. He spoke of things I often think of when I stare at the skies at night. He wrote a few really nice points in the book. I really recommend this book because it addresses some thought-provoking things, and it does teach its reader the simple things of the Universe.

Just Think....

• I sometimes wish that I could once again see the sky as I did as a young child before a lifetime of study provided some of the answers. What if the crescent Moon really were a silvery thing only several feet in size upon which I could perch and make a wish?
• So we ended up being shifted away from the center of God's universe once again, this time by almost 2 billion times the shift of Copernicus from the Earth to the Sun.
• The quest for knowledge becomes as silly and irrational as it would with the literal acceptance of Santa Claus making toys at the North Pole, perhaps with the assistance of the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny.
• If God had wanted us to fly, he would have provided us with wings, these people once claimed; never stopping to ponder the fact that since he provided us with brains, he must have wanted us to think.
• Our Earth and its fellow planets have been faithfully orbiting the Sun for 4.6 billion years - could anything be more permanent?
• In the the other galaxies will either rush in upon us from all directions in a stampede of light toward the next big bang, or they will all disappear forever. If the latter, the universe will die the death of corpses of stars with no light forever roaming an ever greater volume of space.
• Astronomy is blessed in having little such threat to the sky from profiteers unless they launch advertising satellites whose glare would blot out the stars.Astronomy is blessed in having little such threat to the sky from profiteers unless they launch advertising satellites whose glare would blot out the stars.
• I, for one, shall continue to look upon the heavens and their wondrous fill of stars. They seem to me to give rise to a boundless curiosity, to know how big they are, how far they are, and how they got there at all. To require one or another form of God or gods seems to me to beg the question. How the night sky got there is more to the point than who put it there and with what motive.