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General Space Quotes

Spinward Scout

SOC-14 5K
Baron
I thought I'd put up a post for inspiring Space Quotes. I'll pit a new one up every so often. And if anyone else wants to post a Space Quote, please feel free. And plain text is just fine.

carl-sagan-quote.webp
 
“The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism – and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But, if he’s reasonably strong – and lucky – he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s elan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make them – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
― Stanley Kubrick
 
I am not sure of whether or not these fit what Spinward Scout was looking for, but these phrases popped into my mind as some of my favorite science fiction quotes.

H. Beam Piper, from Space Viking.
Any planet that wasn't oxygen-atmosphere, six to eight thousand miles in diameter, and within a narrow surface-temperature range, wasn't worth wasting time on.
H. Beam Piper, from Uller Uprising.
"You know, a lot of professional officers, even up to field rank in the combat branches, seem to think that ammo comes down miraculously from Heaven, in contragravity lorries, every time they pray into a radio for it. It doesn't; it has to be produced as fast as it's expended, and we haven't been doing that.
James Schmitz, from The Witches of Karres.
The key word was PROHIBITED . . . .

Under that heading the Space Regulations had in fact devoted a full page of rather fine print to the Prohibited Planet of Karres. Most of it, however, was conjecture. Nikkeldepain seemed unable to make up its mind whether the witches had developed an alarmingly high level of secret technology or whether there was something downright supernatural about them. But it made it very clear it did not want ordinary citizens to have anything to do with Karres. There was grave danger of spiritual contamination. Hence such contacts could not be regarded as being in the best interests of the Republic and were strictly forbidden.
 
Little Wars

(A Game for Boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty
and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books)
With an Appendix on Kriegspiel

By
H. G. Wells



CONTENTS
I. OF THE LEGENDARY PAST
II. THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN LITTLE WARFARE
III. THE RULES—
The Country
The Move
Mobility of the Various Arms
Hand-to-Hand Fighting and Capturing
Varieties of the Battle-Game
Composition of Forces
Size of the Soldiers
IV. THE BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM
V. EXTENSIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS OF LITTLE WAR
VI. ENDING WITH A SORT OF CHALLENGE
APPENDIX—
LITTLE WARS AND KRIEGSPIEL


"LITTLE WARS" is the game of kings—for players in an inferior social position. It can be played by boys of every age from twelve to one hundred and fifty—and even later if the limbs remain sufficiently supple—by girls of the better sort, and by a few rare and gifted women. This is to be a full History of Little Wars from its recorded and authenticated beginning until the present time, an account of how to make little warfare, and hints of the most priceless sort for the recumbent strategist....

But first let it be noted in passing that there were prehistoric "Little Wars." This is no new thing, no crude novelty; but a thing tested by time, ancient and ripe in its essentials for all its perennial freshness—like spring. There was a Someone who fought Little Wars in the days of Queen Anne; a garden Napoleon. His game was inaccurately observed and insufficiently recorded by Laurence Sterne. It is clear that Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim were playing Little Wars on a scale and with an elaboration exceeding even the richness and beauty of the contemporary game. But the curtain is drawn back only to tantalise us. It is scarcely conceivable that anywhere now on earth the Shandean Rules remain on record. Perhaps they were never committed to paper....

And in all ages a certain barbaric warfare has been waged with soldiers of tin and lead and wood, with the weapons of the wild, with the catapult, the elastic circular garter, the peashooter, the rubber ball, and such-like appliances—a mere setting up and knocking down of men. Tin murder. The advance of civilisation has swept such rude contests altogether from the playroom. We know them no more....





Striker
, maybe.
 
Little Wars

(A Game for Boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty
and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books)
With an Appendix on Kriegspiel

By
H. G. Wells



CONTENTS
I. OF THE LEGENDARY PAST
II. THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN LITTLE WARFARE
III. THE RULES—
The Country
The Move
Mobility of the Various Arms
Hand-to-Hand Fighting and Capturing
Varieties of the Battle-Game
Composition of Forces
Size of the Soldiers
IV. THE BATTLE OF HOOK'S FARM
V. EXTENSIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS OF LITTLE WAR
VI. ENDING WITH A SORT OF CHALLENGE
APPENDIX—
LITTLE WARS AND KRIEGSPIEL


"LITTLE WARS" is the game of kings—for players in an inferior social position. It can be played by boys of every age from twelve to one hundred and fifty—and even later if the limbs remain sufficiently supple—by girls of the better sort, and by a few rare and gifted women. This is to be a full History of Little Wars from its recorded and authenticated beginning until the present time, an account of how to make little warfare, and hints of the most priceless sort for the recumbent strategist....

But first let it be noted in passing that there were prehistoric "Little Wars." This is no new thing, no crude novelty; but a thing tested by time, ancient and ripe in its essentials for all its perennial freshness—like spring. There was a Someone who fought Little Wars in the days of Queen Anne; a garden Napoleon. His game was inaccurately observed and insufficiently recorded by Laurence Sterne. It is clear that Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim were playing Little Wars on a scale and with an elaboration exceeding even the richness and beauty of the contemporary game. But the curtain is drawn back only to tantalise us. It is scarcely conceivable that anywhere now on earth the Shandean Rules remain on record. Perhaps they were never committed to paper....

And in all ages a certain barbaric warfare has been waged with soldiers of tin and lead and wood, with the weapons of the wild, with the catapult, the elastic circular garter, the peashooter, the rubber ball, and such-like appliances—a mere setting up and knocking down of men. Tin murder. The advance of civilisation has swept such rude contests altogether from the playroom. We know them no more....





Striker
, maybe.
He’d fiddle with it all. Although he might argue for the Big Gun universe, not the Big Ship.
 
Reminds me of this, which was probably its inspiration:

British evolutionary biologist and geneticist J.B.S. Haldane quipped that if a god or divine being had created all living organisms on Earth, then that creator must have an “inordinate fondness for beetles.” Beetles (phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta, order Coleoptera) account for a greater number of species than any other single group of living animal.
 
While waiting for the result data of an experiment, Carl Sagan pointed at the table top in front of us and said to me..
"within that desktop, there are millions of atoms beyond counting. Yet, hidden within that cloud are billions of not trillions of mysteries. Questions we don't know the answer to. And, that is the most exciting of all."
 
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God

John G. Magee
 
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