“The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear. It is an immensely exciting experience to be born in the world, born in the universe, and look around you and realise that before you die you have the opportunity of understanding an immense amount about that world and about that universe and about life and about why we're here. We have the opportunity of understanding far, far more than any of our predecessors ever. That is such an exciting possibility, it would be such a shame to blow it and end your life not having understood what there is to understand.”

—  Richard Dawkins

An Interview by Sheena McDonald (1995)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Feb. 28, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does…" by Richard Dawkins?
Richard Dawkins photo
Richard Dawkins322
English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author 1941

Related quotes

Konrad Lorenz photo

“The truth about an animal is far more exciting and altogether more beautiful than all the myths woven about it.”

Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989) Austrian zoologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1973.

Source: Lads Before the Wind: Diary of a Dolphin Trainer

Liu Wen (model) photo

“As you grow up, you understand more about what beauty is. It’s not just about the outside. Your look changes depending on your confidence, and then your beauty changes.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "China’s First Supermodel on Changing Standards of Beauty" in The Cut https://www.thecut.com/2016/02/liu-wen-asian-beauty.html (1 March 2016)

David Levithan photo

“If you stare at the center of the universe, there is coldness there. A blankness. Ultimately, the universe doesn't care about us. Time doesn't care about us. That's why we have to care about each other.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“If we stay on this line, we will map every large galaxy in the observable universe by 2060. Think about that. Think about it: we've gone from arranging clamshells to general relativity to SDSS in a few thousand years -- and if we hang on 40 more, we can map all the galaxies. But we have to stay on the line. Will that be our choice? There are dark forces in this world that will rob our entire species of our right to understand our universe. Don't be afraid of the dark. Fight back. Join us.”

Juna Kollmeier American astrophysicist

Source: The most detailed map of galaxies, black holes and stars ever made https://www.ted.com/talks/juna_kollmeier_the_most_detailed_map_of_galaxies_black_holes_and_stars_ever_made (June 2019)

Northrop Frye photo

“…there is something about time and space that is not real, and something about us that is. However man may have tumbled into this world of indefinite space, he does not belong to it at all. Real space for him is the eternal here; where we are is always the center of the universe, and the circumference of the universe, just as real time is the 'eternal Now' of our personal experience.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", Fearful Symmetry : A Study of William Blake (1947), p. 46

Marvin Minsky photo

“Our culture has a universal myth in which we see emotion as more complex and obscure than intellect. Indeed, emotion might be "deeper" in some sense of prior evolution, but this need not make it harder to understand; in fact, I think today we actually know much more about emotion than about reason.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

Music, Mind, and Meaning (1981)

Omar Bradley photo

“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Armistice Day speech (11 November 1948), published in Omar Bradley's Collected Writings, Volume 1 (1967).
Context: We have men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.

Alexis Karpouzos photo

“Our home, pale blue dot in the vastness of universe's untouched beauty, a tiny spherical world, afloat in a immensity of space and time. Here for a moment, and then we're leaving for the eternity. In the school of mortality we learn to acrobat over the abyss.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

From the book "Universal consciousness"

“Our home, a pale blue dot
in the vastness of universe's untouched beauty,
a tiny, spherical world,
afloat in a immensity of space and time.
Here for a moment,
and then we're leaving for the eternity.
In the school of mortality
we learn to acrobat over the abyss.”

alexis karpouzos

mystic poetry and spirituality

“The present generation believes that it knows more about Jesus Christ than any preceding generation knew. Yet we are equally confident that our grandchildren's children will understand Jesus far better than we do.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 43
Context: The present generation believes that it knows more about Jesus Christ than any preceding generation knew. Yet we are equally confident that our grandchildren's children will understand Jesus far better than we do. There is something more in him than we have been able to fathom.

Related topics