I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the read more

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another

Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes begging.

Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes begging.

There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition; there are times when read more

There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition; there are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it.

That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every read more

That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all read more

I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me.

Everyone has his superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything, read more

Everyone has his superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything, never to turn back or to stop until the thing intended was accomplished.

It does at first appear that an astronomer rapt in abstraction,
while he gazes on a star, must feel read more

It does at first appear that an astronomer rapt in abstraction,
while he gazes on a star, must feel more exquisite than a farmer
who in conducting his team.
- Isaac D'Israeli,

These earthly godfathers of heaven's light,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more read more

These earthly godfathers of heaven's light,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.