International Year of Astronomy/intended Purpose

Famous quotes containing the words year, astronomy, intended and/or purpose:

    Every year lays more earth upon us, which weighs us down from aerial regions, till we go under the earth at last.
    —E.T.A.W. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm)

    Awareness of the stars and their light pervades the Koran, which reflects the brightness of the heavenly bodies in many verses. The blossoming of mathematics and astronomy was a natural consequence of this awareness. Understanding the cosmos and the movements of the stars means understanding the marvels created by Allah. There would be no persecuted Galileo in Islam, because Islam, unlike Christianity, did not force people to believe in a “fixed” heaven.
    Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan sociologist. Islam and Democracy, ch. 9, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (Trans. 1992)

    At first I intended to become a student of the Senate rules and I did learn much about them, but I soon found that the Senate had but one fixed rule, subject to exceptions of course, which was to the effect that the Senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever it wanted to do it.
    Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)

    Possibly the Creator did not make the world chiefly for the purpose of providing studies for gifted novelists; but if he had done so, we can scarcely imagine that He could have offered anything much better in the way of material ...
    Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)