“All human thought, all science, all religion, is the holding of a candle to the night of the universe.”
Quoted in The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith (1979)
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Clark Ashton Smith 5
American author 1893–1961Related quotes

Speech (October 1927); quoted in Atatürk’ten Düşünceler by E. Z. Karal, p. 59

“Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences.”
Author's prefaces to the First Edition.
(Buch I) (1867)

From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)
Context: Humans have always unknowingly affected all Universe by every act and thought they articulate or even consider.... Realistic, comprehensively responsible, omni-system-considerate, unselfish thinking on the part of humans does absolutely affect human destiny.

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: We have now a science called astronomy. That science has done more to enlarge the horizon of human thought than all things else. We now live in an infinite universe. We know that the sun is a million times larger than our earth, and we know that there are other great luminaries millions of times larger than our sun. We know that there are planets so far away that light, traveling at the rate of one hundred and eighty- five thousand miles a second, requires fifteen thousand years to reach this grain of sand, this tear, we call the earth -- and we now know that all the fields of space are sown thick with constellations. If that statute had been enforced, that science would not now be the property of the human mind. That science is contrary to the Bible, and for asserting the truth you become a criminal. For what sum of money, for what amount of wealth, would the world have the science of astronomy expunged from the brain of man? We learned the story of the stars in spite of that statute.

Michael Moon in Manalive (1912)

Section I, p. 5
Natural Law; or The Science of Justice (1882), Chapter I. The Science of Justice.

The Discover Interview: Lisa Randall (July 2006)

The New Divinity (1964)
Context: The entire cosmos is made out of one and the same world-stuff, operated by the same energy as we ourselves. "Mind" and "matter" appears as two aspects of our unitary mind-bodies. There is no separate supernatural realm: all phenomena are part of one natural process of evolution. There is no basic cleavage between science and religion; they are both organs of evolving humanity.