Quotes about stars

A collection of quotes on the topic of star, likeness, use, world.

Best quotes about stars

“Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Variant: Only in the darkness can you see the stars.
Context: But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“I'm not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star.”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist

“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Variant: Look Toward the stars but keep your feet firmly on the ground.
Source: The Greatest American President: The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt

“I was as hollow and empty as the spaces between stars.”

Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye

Source: The Long Goodbye

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson Illusions

Widely attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson on the internet; however, a presumably definitive source of Emerson's works at http://www.rwe.org fails to confirm any occurrence of this phrase across his works. This phrase is found in remarks attributed to Charles A. Beard in Arthur H. Secord, "Condensed History Lesson", Readers' Digest, February 1941, p. 20; but the origin has not been determined. Possibly confused with a passage in "Illusions" in which Emerson discusses his experience in the "Star Chamber": "our lamps were taken from us by the guide, and extinguished or put aside, and, on looking upwards, I saw or seemed to see the night heaven thick with stars glimmering more or less brightly over our heads, and even what seemed a comet flaming among them. All the party were touched with astonishment and pleasure. Our musical friends sung with much feeling a pretty song, “The stars are in the quiet sky,” &c., and I sat down on the rocky floor to enjoy the serene picture. Some crystal specks in the black ceiling high overhead, reflecting the light of a half–hid lamp, yielded this magnificent effect."
Misattributed

“Technology does not lead us to stars, human love does.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“Tell the sun and stars hello for me.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Quotes about stars

“Stars," she whispered. "I can see the stars again, my lady."
A tear trickled down Artemis's cheek. "Yes, my brave one. They are beautiful tonight."
Stars," Zoe repeated. Her eyes fixed on the night sky. And she did not move again.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Beauty , Tear , Night

“Reading is the greatest thing ever, I've read alot that I know what very few people know… That the stars in the night sky are suns and that there are earth-like planets orbiting those stars, meaning there are other planets like earth out there… Reading is great”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

People , Night , Reading , Sun

“Dreams are like stars; you may never touch them, but if you follow them, they will lead you to your destiny.”

Liam Payne (1993) English singer and songwriter

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/6422617.Liam_Payne

Dreams

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Motivational , Beauty , Success , Deep

“The night is my best friend. It calms the storm in my soul and it lets the guiding stars rise.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Die Nacht ist meine beste Freundin. Sie glättet den Sturm in der Seele und lässt die weisenden Sterne aufgehen.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Soul , Night

“Bach is an astronomer, discovering the most marvellous stars. Beethoven challenges the universe. I only try to express the soul and the heart of man.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Soul , Universe , Heart

“It all began with the three wise men, followed a star took them to Bethelehem, and made it heard throughout the land — born was the leader of man. All going down to see the Lord Jesus.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"Jesus" on Queen (1973).

Men

“At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Painting , Night , Forgetting

“Someday death will take us to another star.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Death

“Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Sun , Sea

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Variant: Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.

Success , Deep , Love , Life

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan

Lord Darlington, Act III
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)

Inspirational , Attitude , Hope , Positive

“Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Life , Imagination , Change

“You don't find love, it finds you. It's got a little bit to do with destiny, fate, and what's written in the stars.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Love , Fate

“Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the Creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing and then, it is the eternal dance of creation. The Creator and the creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing — until there is only … the dance.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

"The Dance" - from inlay sleeve of Dangerous (1991)

World , Lovers , Joy , Dance

“Listen,
if stars are still lit it means there is someone who needs them.
It means someone wants to love,
Why then do we feel so much pain and heaviness of heart?
are we waiting for something, regretting anything?
To whom I can strech out my hand in the somber desert?
Who will accompany me on the empty night?
Who will give me a fiery day?
Who will bring back the sea that left?
No hope here. Torment is certain.
Without sacredness in the emptiness of this world of ours,
the heart of man fades like a flower.
Suddenly, the shuddering of the heavens penetrating my soul,
Oh never let the parting sun, no star is ever lost we once have seen, the long rains will continue to fall.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: Song THE HEART OF MAN

Soul , Pain , Waiting , Night

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Part One, Ch. 1
On the Road (1957)
Context: They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

People , Time , Madness

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

Harriet Tubman (1820–1913) African-American abolitionist and humanitarian

Inspirational , Success , Motivational , Hope

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Der Spiegel (17 October 1988)

Understanding , Universe

“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Heart

“If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Life , Tear , Sun , Cry

“Vulcan?" Leo demanded. "I don't even LIKE Star Trek!”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Religion , Learning , Distant , Patience

“Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Love , Music , Silence , Parting

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

“You are the sun, you make me shine, or more like the stars, that twinkle at night. You are the moon that glows in my heart. You're my daytime, my night-time, my world…you are my life.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

You Are My Life
Invincible (2001)

Life , World , Time , Sun

“And before the stars were born.
The greatest gift you can offer anyone is their complete freedom.
Freedom to love, to laugh, to cry, to feel scared, angry, insecure, full of doubt or full of joy.
To hold them in that safe and sacred space.
You don't exist to make anyone else happy.
But you can be present.
Present to their unhappiness, their excitement.
Present to the life that moves in them.
And you can invite them to a deeper Happiness.
The Happiness of Being itself.
The Happiness that holds them exactly as they are.
The way you hold them now.
The way the ground holds the flowers, the trees, the great mountain ranges.
The way you were held as a little one.
And before the stars were born.”

Джефф Фостер (1977) American basketball player

Love , Life , Way , Feeling

“Let me light my lamp", says the star, "And never debate if it will help to remove the darkness”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Light , Help

“They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

“Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

Part I, section 3.
Source: Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847)

Love , Angels , Forgetting

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: On the Road: the Original Scroll

“I see myself as a huge fiery comet, a shooting star. Everyone stops, points up and gasps "Oh look at that!" Then — whoosh, and I'm gone… and they'll never see anything like it ever again… and they won't be able to forget me — ever.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

As quoted in Straight Whisky: A Living History of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll on the Sunset Strip (2003), by Erik Quisling, and Austin Lowry Williams p. 152

Forgetting

“If you act like a rock star you will be treated like one.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

“Know that the philosopher has power over the stars, and not the stars over him.”

Paracelsus (1493–1541) Swiss physician and alchemist

“A head full of stars, just not in constellation yet.”

Elias Canetti (1905–1994) Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer

“I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Dreams

“Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Life

“We all shine on in the moon and the stars and the sun.”

Ben Sherwood book The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud

Source: The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud

Sun

“If I had to tell you how humans made their way to Earth, it would go like this: In the beginning, there was nothing at all but the moon and the sun. And the moon wanted to come out during the day, but there was something so much brighter that seemed to fill up all those hours. The moon grew hungry, thinner and thinner, until she was just a slice of herself, and her tips were as sharp as a knife. By accident, because that is the way most things happen, she poked a hole in the night and out spilled a million stars, like a fountain of tears.

Horrified, the moon tried to swallow them up. And sometimes this worked, because she got fatter and rounder.. But mostly it didn't, because there were just so many. The stars kept coming, until they made the sky so bright that the sun got jealous. He invited the stars to his side of the world, where it was always bright. What he didn't tell them, though, was that in the daytime, they'd never be seen. So the stupid ones leaped from the sky to the ground, and they froze under the weight of their own foolishness.

The moon did her best. She carved each of these blocks of sorrow into a man or a woman. She spent the rest of her time watching out so that her other stars wouldn't fall. She spent the rest of her time holding onto whatever scraps she had left.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Stupidity , World , Way , Tear

“I'm Kan, the Louis Vouitton don / Bought my mom purse, now she Louis Vuitton mom / I didn't play the hand I was dealt I changed my cards / I prayed to the skies and I changed my stars / I went to the malls and I balled too hard / Oh My God is that a Black card / I turned around and replied why yes, but I prefer the term African American Express”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Last Call
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

God , Moms , Change

“I made public the resolution to abstain from wine, which had been hidden in the treasury of my breast The victorious servants, in accordance with the illustrious order, dashed upon the earth of contempt and destruction the flagons and the cups, and the other utensils in gold and silver, which in their number and their brilliance were like the stars of the firmament They dashed them in pieces, as, God willing! soon will be dashed the gods of the idolaters, - and they distributed the fragments among the poor and needy.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, pp. 554-5. https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp#page/n623/mode/2up/search/dashed Also cited in Harsh Narain, The Ayodhya Temple Mosque Dispute: Focus on Muslim Sources

God , Wine , Victory

“If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

6
Stray Birds (1916)

Tear , Sun

“As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe as measured from the beginning to the evaporation of the last black hole, life as we know it is only possible for one-thousandth of a billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, billion billion billionth, of a percent (10^-84). And that's why, for me, the most astonishing wonder of the universe isn't a star or a planet or a galaxy. It isn't a thing at all. It's an instant in time. And that time is now. Humans have walked the earth for just the shortest fraction of that briefest of moments in deep time. But in our 200,000 years on this planet we've made remarkable progress. It was only 2,500 years ago that we believed that the sun was a god and measured its orbit with stone towers built on the top of a hill. Today the language of curiosity is not sun gods, but science. And we have observatories that are almost infinitely more sophisticated than those towers, that can gaze out deep into the universe. And perhaps even more remarkably through theoretical physics and mathematics we can calculate what the universe will look like in the distant future. And we can even make concrete predictions about its end. And I believe that it's only by continuing our exploration of the cosmos and the laws of nature that govern it that we can truly understand ourselves and our place in this universe of wonders.”

Brian Cox (physicist) (1968) English physicist and former musician

Conclusion in Wonders of the Universe - Destiny

Life , God , Law , Mathematics

“That's why there are so few women stars today. Pornography has taken away the mystery.”

Irene Dunne (1898–1990) American actress

A Visit With Irene Dunne (1977)

Women

“It is time, love, to break off that sombre rose,
shut up the stars and bury the ash in the earth;
and, in the rising of the light, wake with those who awoke
or go on in the dream, reaching the other shore of the sea which has no other shore.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Es la hora, amor mío, de apartar esta rosa sombría,
cerrar las estrellas, enterrar la ceniza en la tierra:
y, en la insurrección de la luz, despertar con los que despertaron
o seguir en el sueño alcanzando la otra orilla del mar que no tiene otra orilla.
La Barcarola Termina (The Watersong Ends) (1967), trans. Anthony Kerrigan in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda [Houghton Mifflin, 1990, ISBN 0-395-54418-1] (p. 500).

Love , Dreams , Light , Time

“International rock star - gravy maker extraordinaire.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

The Osbournes television show

“We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)
Context: As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.

War , Way , History , Freedom

“Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

Interview (20 September 1988), included in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, DVD 7, "Mission Logs: Year Five", "A Tribute to Gene Roddenberry", 0:26:09)
Context: Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things.

“I'm looking for the face i had before the world was made. I was the primordial flaring forth, the gravitational waves, the whirling galaxies, and the exploding supernovas that would become stars and planets. I was the steaming planet Earth, the bacteria awash in the sea, and the early eukaryotes and multicellular animals. I exploded in the Cambrian explosion, stumbled onto land, walked with dinosaurs, saw trees and flowers appear, walked upright in Africa, and walked on the moon. I felt the embrace of gravity. I was one with all that had been and all that was to be. I experienced subjective mystical communion with the evolutionary, emergent universe. I was the universe. We know not where the journey leads, nor whether a final destination is even a meaningful concept. The attraction is the inherent thrill of participating in a grand creative endeavor for which participation is its own reward”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14108295.alexis_karpouzos

Tree , Animals , Flowers , Universe

“At times, he yearns for the few pockets of darkness that remain on this night so illuminated by that cursed moon, by the despicable stars, by the cursed vehicles, by the hateful city.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

Hate , Night , Time

“And to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in
a merry hour.
BEATRICE
No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there
was a star danced, and under that was I born.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Question , Dance

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Variant: Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt thou the sun doth move
Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love
Source: Hamlet

love , Romantic , Valentine's Day , Wedding

“Love is the mystery of water and a star.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Love , Water

“I have seen beyond the bounds of infinity and drawn down daemons from the stars…. I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness….”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Death , World , Madness

“God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

God , Flowers , Tree

“I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

"Colonies in space may be only hope, says Hawking" by Roger Highfield in Daily Telegraph (16 October 2001).

Life , Thinking

“The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

Source: Stray Birds

Appearance

“In our village, folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Source: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

God

“Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee.”

James Cameron (1954) Canadian film director

Sister

“There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Night

“Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night;
Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night…”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Variant: When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Source: Romeo and Juliet

Love , World , Night

“Bob says hello," He told the stars.
The Argo II sailed into the night.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Variant: Bob says hello," he told the stars.
Source: The House of Hades

Night

“I defy you, stars.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

“Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Part 2, Book 1, Ch. 2
Variant translation: What makes night within us may leave stars.
Source: Ninety-Three (1874)
Context: Cimourdain was a pure-minded but gloomy man. He had "the absolute" within him. He had been a priest, which is a solemn thing. Man may have, like the sky, a dark and impenetrable serenity; that something should have caused night to fall in his soul is all that is required. Priesthood had been the cause of night within Cimourdain. Once a priest, always a priest.
Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.

Truth , Soul , Night

“A thousand years ago five minutes were
Equal to forty ounces of fine sand.
Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and
Infinite aftertime: above your head
They close like giant wings, and you are dead.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

Dead

“It is early, early morning. It's that time when it's still dark but you know the day is coming. Blue is bleeding through black. Stars are dying.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: Underdog

Time

“For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Source: Selected Poems and Four Plays

Love , Thinking

“The stars are a free show; it don’t cost anything to use your eyes”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and Out in Paris and London

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Cassius, Act I, scene ii.
Variant: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Source: Julius Caesar

“I'm awaiting a lover. I have to be rent and pulled apart and live according to the demons and the imagination in me. I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Imagination , Lovers

“It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Love

“We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 193
Context: We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.

“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Part Two, Ch. 4
On the Road (1957)

Night

“Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

Light

“May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

God

“The moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life they're free
Stars belong to everyone
They cling there for you and for me.”

Sam Cooke (1931–1964) American singer-songwriter and entrepreneur

The Best Things in Life Are Free
Song lyrics, Sam Cooke at the Copa (1964)

Life

“I was born under a lucky star, and I have nothing whatsoever to regret. I wouldn’t change a thing about my life.”

Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist

In his interview with Nina Myskow for Saga magazine, July 2007

Life , Change

“Look round at the courses of the stars, as if thou wert going along with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another; for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VII, 47
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII

Life , Change

“I was the highest-priced and most important star in Hollywood, but I was "difficult."”

Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000) Austrian-American actress and co-inventor of an early technique for spread spectrum communications and freq…

Popcorn in Paradise (1980)

“Love knows not distance; it hath no continent; its eyes are for the stars, its feet for the swords; it continueth, though an army lay waste the pasture; it comforteth when there are no medicines; it hath the relish of manna; and by it do men live in the desert.”

Gilbert Parker (1862–1932) Canadian novelist and British politician

"The White Omen"

Love , Men

“How stars move tell us that most matter in the universe is dark. When we see stars in the sky, we're only seeing five or 10 percent of the matter that there is in the universe.”

Vera Rubin (1928–2016) American astronomer

As quoted in Pontifical Science Academy http://www.ewtn.com/library/ISSUES/STELLAR.TXT

Universe

“Hero is a misnomer. India is the only place left in the world where we call our stars heroes and heroines.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with David Light

World

“His [ Van Gogh's] pathos is alien to me, especially in my current phase, but he is certainly a genius. Pathetic to the point of being pathological, this endangered man can endanger one who does not see through him. Here a brain is consumed by the fire of a star. It frees itself in its work just before the catastrophe. Deepest tragedy takes place here, real tragedy, natural tragedy, exemplary tragedy. Permit me to be terrified.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1908), # 816, in The Diaries of Paul Klee; University of California Press, 1964; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Three' : Klee as a Secessionist and a Neo-Impressionist Artist http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev.html
1903 - 1910

Nature

“Upon the earth are animals and men, some in a middle region, others dwelling about the air as we dwell about the sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the continent; and in a word, the air is used by them as the water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them as the air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their seasons is such that they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and have sight and hearing and smell, and all the other senses, in far greater perfection, in the same degree that air is purer than water or the ether than air. Also they have temples and sacred places in which the gods really dwell, and they hear their voices and receive their answers and are conscious of them and hold converse with them, and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they really are, and their other blessedness is of a piece with this.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Men , God , Disease , Sense

“The "great things" are nothing less than that she became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed upon her as pass man's understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among whom she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in Heaven, and such a child. She herself is unable to find a name for this work, it is too exceedingly great; all she can do is break out in the fervent cry: "They are great things," impossible to describe or define. Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God. No one can say anything greater of her or to her, though he had as many tongues as there are leaves on the trees, or grass in the fields, or stars in the sky, or sand by the sea. It needs to be pondered in the heart, what it means to be the Mother of God.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Commentary on the Magnificat (Das Magnificat), A.D. 1521
<cite>Luther's Works</cite>, American Edition, vol. 21, p. 326, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Concordia Publishing House, 1956. ISBN 057006421X

Men , God , Understanding , Tree

“The trouble with trouble was that trouble was looking for Coldwater Gatling. They don't like Texas Rangers down in Arizona, consequently Coldwater Gatling figured shoot first and find out who you killed afterwards. That's how they did it in the Lone Star State where men were men and the women didn't mind cooking for hard-riding straight-shooting people like Coldwater Gatling, the toughest man in leather they had down there.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Women , Men , People , Cooking

“To the right hand I turned, and fixed my mind
Upon the other pole, and saw four stars
Ne'er seen before save by the primal people.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto I, lines 22–24 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

People

“[S]he became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed on her as pass man's understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in heaven, and such a Child…. Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God…. None can say of her nor announce to her greater things, even though he had as many tongues as the earth possesses flowers and blades of grass: the sky, stars; and the sea, grains of sand. It needs to be pondered in the heart what it means to be the Mother of God.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Luther's Works, 21:326, cf. 21:346

Men , God , Flowers , Understanding

“I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark almost blue color, and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.””

John Green book The Fault in Our Stars

A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."
Augustus "Gus" Waters, p. 310-313
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Love , Death , War , People

“Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto XXXIII, line 145 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

“Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice. You lived first, and you are older than all need, older than all prayer. All things belong to you — the two-leggeds, the four-leggeds, the wings of the air and all green things that live. You have set the powers of the four quarters to cross each other. The good road and the road of difficulties you have made to cross; and where they cross, the place is holy. Day in and day out, forever, you are the life of things.
Therefore, I am sending a voice, Great Spirit, my Grandfather, forgetting nothing you have made, the stars of the universe and the grasses of the earth.”

Black Elk (1863–1950) Oglala Lakota leader

Black Elk Speaks (1961)

Life , Grass , Universe , Forgetting

“To be a star is~to own the world and all the people in it. After a taste of stardom, everything else is poverty.”

Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000) Austrian-American actress and co-inventor of an early technique for spread spectrum communications and freq…

Popcorn in Paradise (1980)

People , World

“Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for the rock star act. None of the techs backstage care if you're David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs.”

Henry Rollins book Black Coffee Blues

Black Coffee Blues

Jerk , Thinking , Tear , Time

“What are we doing here? We're reaching for the stars.”

Christa McAuliffe (1948–1986) American educator and astronaut

"Christa McAuliffe 1948-1986" in TIME magazine (10 February 1986) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,960597,00.html

“You still stand watch, O human star, burning without a flicker, perfect flame, bright and resourceful spirit. Each of your rays a great idea — O torch which passes from hand to hand, from age to age, world without end.”

Karel Čapek R.U.R.

R.U.R. (1920)

Age , World , Idea , Perfection

“He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar,
The only thing that keeps me wishing on a wishing star.
He's the song in the car I keep singing, don't know why I do.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Teardrops on My Guitar, written by Taylor Swift and Liz Rose.
Song lyrics, Taylor Swift (2006)

Cars , Singing

“Swords flashed like lightning amid the blackness of clouds, and fountains of blood flowed like the fall of setting stars. The friends of God defeated their obstinate opponents, and quickly put them to a complete rout. Noon had not arrived when the Musulmans had wreaked their vengeance on the infidel enemies of Allah, killing 15,000 of them, spreading them like a carpet over the ground, and making them food for beasts and birds of prey… The enemy of God, Jaipal, and his children and grandchildren,… were taken prisoners, and being strongly bound with ropes, were carried before the Sultan, like as evildoers, on whose faces the fumes of infidelity are evident, who are covered with the vapours of misfortune, will be bound and carried to Hell. Some had their arms forcibly tied behind their backs, some were seized by the cheek, some were driven by blows on the neck. The necklace was taken off the neck of Jaipal, - composed of large pearls and shining gems and rubies set in gold, of which the value was two hundred thousand dinars; and twice that value was obtained from necks of those of his relatives who were taken prisoners, or slain, and had become the food of the mouths of hyenas and vultures. Allah also bestowed upon his friends such an amount of booty as was beyond all bounds and all calculation, including five hundred thousand slaves, beautiful men and women. The Sultan returned with his followers to his camp, having plundered immensely, by Allah's aid, having obtained the victory, and thankful to Allah… This splendid and celebrated action took place on Thursday, the 8th of Muharram, 392 H., 27th November, 1001 AD.”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

About the defeat of Jaipal. Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 27 Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
Quotes from Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi

Women , Men , God , Children

“"Film star," "movie star" — whatever they want to try to call you is limiting, in the sense that I think an actor has to be able to play characters. To separate these things — you know: "leading man," "action hero," "character actor," stuff like that — I guess if I want to be close to anything, it would be a character actor, which is what I think an actor should be. So any of that "movie star" stuff, I just don't buy it. It just doesn't make sense to me.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Quoted in "'Johnny Depp - From Hell' special," http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/From%20Hell%20Special.htm ITV (January 2002)

Thinking , Sense

“If any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and fly upward, like a fish who puts his head out and sees the world, he would see a world beyond; and, if the nature of man could sustain this sight, he would acknowledge that this was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true stars. For this earth, and the stones, and the entire region which surrounds us, are spoilt and corroded…”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

World , Nature , Bird , Fish

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