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Even if humanity is not the reason for which the universe was made, I still wish to understand the way it operates. We human beings may not be the answer to the question why, but I will keep looking for the answer to how.

— Ted Chiang Exhalation: Stories (2019)

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Space

More quotes by Ted Chiang

Let me always be inquisitive, but never be suspicious.

Exhalation: Stories (2019)

The universe was a language with a perfectly ambiguous grammar. Every physical event was an utterance that could be parsed in two entirely different ways, one causal and the other teleological.

Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)

God is not just, God is not kind, God is not merciful, and understanding that is essential to true devotion.

Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)

Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.

Exhalation: Stories (2019)

But the church as an institution has always been able to derive strength from the evidence when it’s useful and ignore it when it’s not.

Exhalation: Stories (2019)

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Since, in the long run, every planetary society 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.

Carl Sagan Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994)

The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (1836)

Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
For lovers love the western star.

Walter Scott The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky.

Arthur Koestler The Act of Creation (1964)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ted Chiang (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.