Good astronomy quotes? Post 'em here!

[Blue Fire]

Hi everybody!

It just struck me that it might be fun , enlightening , educational, and just plain cool to get a collection of astronomy related quotes going here. I'll start.

From: http://www.giga-usa.com/quotes/topic...onomy_t001.htm

The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs.
- Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) (often called "Tully" for short)

At night astronomers agree.
- Matthew Prior, Phillis's Age (st. 3)

And yet another, from the same site:

And God made two great lights, great for their use
To man, the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night, altern.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost (bk. VII, l. 346)

But I don't quite get this one. What the heck is "altern"? Can anyone help me out?

[Dragon Star]

Altern is an electric generator that produces alternating current.

[Nokton]

Hi Dragon, sick and tired now of irrelevent understanding.
Albert is wrong? Time slows down as gravity increases, so a black hole
cannot produce a spaghetti effect on a body falling into it. Never mind
what I was told, there not time to stop it... Oh my. Albert is right or wrong here. Albert right, can you conceive a black hole in three dimensions, not two as depicted so often on tele????
Nokton

[dpab]

a funny one I read the other day was a good one.

The author slips my mind right now but he is well known .

It was about the Universe...."the universe is a big place , probably the biggest".

observing not to good right now up here, its still so twilight out at 12 at night. the birds and morning light happen just after 4 am.

the poor suckers farther north will be happy to get a break in the midnight too.