Favorite saying

• ""No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." -Voltaire "The reassuring aspect of the portrait of the universe we now see drawn across the sky lies in its reconciliation of humanity with the material world. That we are part of the galaxy is literally true. The atoms of which we are formed were gathered together in the toilings of a galaxy; their fantastical assembly into living creatures was nourished by the warmth of a star in a galaxy; we look at the galaxies with a galaxy's eyes. To understand this is to give voice to the silent stars. Stand under the stars and say what you like to them. Praise or blame them, question them, pray to them, wish upon them. The universe will not answer. But it will have spoken." -Timothy Ferris "Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky. The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself. The scientist's discoveries impose his own order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is based on the observer's frame of reference, which differs from period to period as a Rembrant nude differs from a nude by Manet." -Arthur Koestler "It seems that nature jealously keeps its secrets and even here, where the mind of human beings is able to open it up-- every step to something new and unexplored is achieved by a narrow margin with a high price to pay.... We have such a short period of our life for creating something." -Sergei Korolev "First you have to give up, first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die. " "Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out... Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure." -A. E. Housman "All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man." -Henry David Thoreau"