“In conversing with persons who are not officially attached to Observatories or in other ways professionally cognizant of the technicalities of practical Astronomy but who nevertheless display great interest… these persons appear to regard the determination of measures like those of the distance of the Sun and Moon as mysteries beyond ordinary comprehension… [and] when persons well acquainted with the general facts of Astronomy are introduced into an Observatory, they are for the most part utterly unable to understand anything which they see…
The measure of the Moon's distance involves no principle more abstruse than the measure of the distance of a tree on the opposite bank of a river. The principles of construction of the best Astronomical instruments are as simple and as closely referred to matters of common school-education and familiar experience, as are those of the common globes, the steam engine, or the turning-lathe; the details are usually less complicated.”
Introduction
Popular Astronomy: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Ipswich (1868)
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George Biddell Airy 13
English mathematician and astronomer 1801–1892Related quotes
Source: Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation, 1957, p. 17

Vol. I, Ch. 2: Of the Prophetic Language
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Context: In the heavens, the Sun and Moon are, by interpreters of dreams, put for the persons of Kings and Queens; but in sacred Prophecy, which regards not single persons, the Sun is put for the whole species and race of Kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, shining with regal power and glory; the Moon for the body of the common people, considered as the King's wife; the Stars for subordinate Princes and great men, or for Bishops and Rulers of the people of God, when the Sun is Christ; light for the glory, truth, and knowledge, wherewith great and good men shine and illuminate others; darkness for obscurity of condition, and for error, blindness and ignorance; darkening, smiting, or setting of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, for the ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desolation thereof, proportional to the darkness; darkening the Sun, turning the Moon into blood, and falling of the Stars, for the same; new Moons, for the return of a dispersed people into a body politic or ecclesiastic.

“The most generous person is the one who offers help to those who do not expect him to help.”
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 121
General Quotes
Geoffrey Burbidge http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/114263939/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0.

It has certainly been my experience.
John Pilger, This much i know http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/nov/13/pressandpublishing.observermagazine, The Observer, 13 November 2005

“The most unpresentable persons are generally the most interesting.”
Source: Las memorias de Mamá Blanca
“The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward.”
Source: Caddie Woodlawn's Family