“The raft is used to cross the river. It isn't to be carried around on your shoulders. The finger which points at the moon isn't the moon itself.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Source: The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Thich Nhat Hanh 169

Religious leader and peace activist 1926

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“No affirmation is more than a finger pointing to the moon.”

Huston Smith book The World's Religions

The World's Religions (1991)
Context: Signposts are not the destination, maps are not the terrain. Life is too rich and textured to be fitted into pigeonholes, let alone equated with them. No affirmation is more than a finger pointing to the moon. And, lest attention turn to the finger, Zen will point, only to withdraw its finger at once.

“(Man in bar) The kind of woman I want just isn't around anymore. (Sylvia) Perhaps if you wait for a full moon.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 24

“When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“Don't think, feel…. it is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory!”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Bruce Lee: Enter the Dragon (1973); In a training session with one of the temple students.
Variant: Its like a finger pointing away to the moon. Dont concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.
Source: Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

“maybe death
isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

“[Hypotheses]
1. That the Moon receives its light from the sun.
2. That the earth is in the relation of a point and centre to the sphere in which the moon moves.
3. That, when the moon appears to us halved, the great circle which divides the dark and the bright portions of the moon is in the direction of our eye.
4. That, when the moon appears to us halved, its distance from the sun is then less than a quadrant by one-thirtieth of a quadrant.
5. That the breadth of the (earth's) shadow is (that) of two moons.
6. That the moon subtends one fifteenth part of a sign of the zodiac.”

Aristarchus of Samos ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician

Note "is less than a quadrant..." is less than 90° by l/30th of 90° or 3°, and is therefore equal to 87°.
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon (c. 250 BC)