Great Space Quotes

"The earth is the cradle of humankind, but one cannot live in the cradle forever."
This is the quote that I keep at the top of every page on my Space Monitor blog. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's words provide perhaps the best, most succinct way of describing my purpose for writing this blog. There are many other great quotes out there, though many not quite as short as Tsiolkovsky's, and I would like to share with you all a list of some of my favorite. I encourage any readers out there to submit any of their favorite quotes or perhaps one of their own and I will gladly add them to this list. In the meantime I hope you enjoy the ones I have provided for you.

Here's my list:

"The earth is the cradle of humankind, but one cannot live in the cradle forever."
—Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

"Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go - and he'll do plenty well when he gets there."
— Dr. Wernher von Braun, in 'Time' magazine, 17 February 1958

"Earth is too small a basket for mankind to keep all its eggs in.
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds."
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."
— Stephen Hawking, interview with Daily Telegraph, 2001

"The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!"
— Larry Nevin

"Remember this: once the human race is established on more than one planet and especially, in more than one solar system, there is no way now imaginable to kill off the human race."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"People who view industrialization as a source of the Earth's troubles, its pollution, and the desecration of its surface, can only advocate that we give it up. This is something that we can't do; we have the tiger by the tail. We have 4.5 billion people on Earth. We can't support that many unless we're industrialized and technologically advanced. So, the idea is not to get rid of industrialization but to move it somewhere else. If we can move it a few thousand miles into space, we still have it, but not on Earth. Earth can then become a world of parks, farms, and wilderness without giving up the benefits of industrialization."
— Isaac Asimov, speech at Rutgers University

"As I stand out here in the wonders of the unknown at Hadley, I sort of realize there's a fundamental truth to our nature, Man must explore . . . and this is exploration at its greatest."
— Dave Scott, Commander Apollo 15, upon becoming the 7th man to walk on the Moon, 31 July 1971.

"It [the rocket] will free man from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. It will open to him the gates of heaven."
— Wernher von Braun

"God has no intention of setting a limit to the efforts of man to conquer space."
— Pope Pius XII

"When I orbited the Earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how beautiful our planet is. Mankind, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it!"
— Yuri Gagarin

"Astronomy compels the soul to look upward, and leads us from this world to another."
— Plato, 'The Republic,' 342 B.C.

"... the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward, and so will space."
— President John F. Kennedy

"But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?"
— President John F. Kennedy

"It's human nature to stretch, to go, to see, to understand. Exploration is not a choice, really; it's an imperative."
— Michael Collins

"To go places and do things that have never been done before - that's what living is all about."
— Michael Collins

"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit."
— Stephen Hawking

"When you look at the stars and the galaxy, you feel you are not just from any particular piece of land, but from the solar system."
— Laurel Clark

"It's time for the human race to enter the solar system."
— Dan Quayle

"For me the singe overarching goal of human space flight is the human settlement of the solar system . . . no greater purpose is possible."
— Mike Griffin, NASA administrator, Congressional testimony 2004

"The regret on our side is, they used to say years ago, we are reading about you in science class. Now they say, we are reading about you in history class."
— Neil Armstrong, July 1999

"Many say exploration is part of our destiny, but it's actually our duty to future generations and their quest to ensure the survival of the human species."
— Buzz Aldrin, on the 37th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Landing, July 2006

Reader Submissions:

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
— Albert Einstein

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