“It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the Moon.”
Source: The Starry Messenger, Venice 1610: "From Doubt to Astonishment"
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Galileo Galilei 70
Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer 1564–1642Related quotes
“Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.”
The Reason of Church Government, Introduction, Book ii
“And he beholds the moon; like a rounded fragment of ice filled with motionless light.”
Source: The Temptation of St. Antony
Letter to Hugo Boxel (Oct. 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).
Context: Beauty, my dear Sir, is not so much a quality of the object beheld, as an effect in him who beholds it. If our sight were longer or shorter, or if our constitution were different, what now appears beautiful to us would seem misshapen, and what we now think misshapen we should regard as beautiful. The most beautiful hand seen through the microscope will appear horrible. Some things are beautiful at a distance, but ugly near; thus things regarded in themselves, and in relation to God, are neither ugly nor beautiful. Therefore, he who says that God has created the world, so that it might be beautiful, is bound to adopt one of the two alternatives, either that God created the world for the sake of men's pleasure and eyesight, or else that He created men's pleasure and eyesight for the sake of the world. Now, whether we adopt the former or the latter of these views, how God could have furthered His object by the creation of ghosts, I cannot see. Perfection and imperfection are names which do not differ much from the names beauty and ugliness.<!--p. 382
“Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt.”
Source: The Pragmatics of Patriotism (1973)
Context: Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
“Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, leadership is in the eyes of the led.”
Leadership Is in the Eyes of the Led, Says Thiry http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/vftt_thiry.html (2007)