Quotes about astrology

A collection of quotes on the topic of astrologer, astrology, science, use.

Quotes about astrology

George Orwell photo
C.G. Jung photo
Voltaire photo

“Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

La superstition est à la religion ce que l’astrologie est à l’astronomie, la fille très folle d’une mère très sage. Ces deux filles ont longtemps subjugué toute la terre.
"Whether it is useful to maintain the people in superstition," Treatise on Toleration (1763)
Citas

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Do you believe then that the sciences would have arisen and grown up if the sorcerers, alchemists, astrologers and witches had not been their forerunners; those who, with their promisings and foreshadowings, had first to create a thirst, a hunger, and a taste for hidden and forbidden powers?”

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

Variant translation: Do you believe then that the sciences would ever have arisen and become great if there had not beforehand been magicians, alchemists, astrologers and wizards, who thirsted and hungered after abscondite and forbidden powers?
Sec. 300
The Gay Science (1882)

Hannes Alfvén photo

“Most people today still believe, perhaps unconsciously, in the heliocentric universe … every newspaper in the land has a section on astrology, yet few have anything at all on astronomy.”

Hannes Alfvén (1908–1995) Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist

Source: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents (1988), p. 196.

Voltaire photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Rebecca West photo

“Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

Source: The Book Of Military Quotations

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo

“I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Disputed

John Kenneth Galbraith photo

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Though often attributed to Galbraith, as early as 1988 in U.S. News & World Report, the earliest publications of this statement, in The Bulletin (1984) and Reader's Digest (1985) attributes it to Ezra Solomon.
Misattributed

Jayant Narlikar photo
Alauddin Khalji photo

“When Raja Sidhraj Jaisingh Solanki became the king, he extended his conquest as far as Malwa and Burhanpur etc. and laid foundation of lofty forts such as the forts of Broach and Dabhoi etc. He dug the tank of Sahastraling in Pattan, many others in Biramgam and at most places in Sorath. His reign is known as 'Sang Bast', the Age of Stone Buildings. He founded the city of Sidhpur and built the famous Rudramal Temple. It is related that when he intended to build Rudramal, he summoned astrologers to elect an auspicious hour for it. The astrologers said to him that some harm through heavenly revolution is presaged from Alauddin when his turn comes to the Saltanat of Dihli. The Raja relied on the statement of astrologers and entered into a pledge and pact with the said Sultan. The Sultan had said. 'If I do not destroy it under terms of the pact, yet I will leave some religious vestiges.”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

When, after some time, the turn of the Sultan came to the Saltanat of Delhi, he marched with his army to that side and left religious marks by constructing a masjid and a minar...[Sidhpur (Gujarat)]
Mirat-i-Ahmadi by Ali Muhammad Khan, in Mirat-i-Ahmdi, translated into English by M.F. Lokhandwala, Baroda, 1965, P. 27-29. Quoted in S.R. Goel: Hindu Temples What Happened to them. Sita Ram Goel adds the following comment "This account is obviously a folktale because ‘Alau’d-Din Khalji became a Sultan two hundred years after Siddharaja JayasiMha ascended the throne of Gujarat. Moreover, ‘Alau’d-Din never went to Gujarat; he sent his generals, Ulugh Khan and Nasrat Khan."
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

Morarji Desai photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
Thomas Aquinas photo
Johannes Kepler photo

“God gives every animal the means of saving its life—why object if he gives astrology to the astronomer?”

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer

Vol. VIII, p. 705
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)

John Allen Paulos photo

“Any bit of nonsense can be computerized—astrology, biorhythms, the I Ching—but that doesn’t make the nonsense any more valid.”

John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician

Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 3, “Pseudoscience” (p. 68)

P. V. Narasimha Rao photo

“I do not attach too much importance to what astrologers say. In my case, they have never been right. Perhaps, my birth date is inaccurate. Nobody predicted I would be prime minister. Why prime minister? Nobody even predicted I would be chief minister.”

P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004) Indian politician

On his purported deep interest in astrological predictions.
While nobody was opening their mouths in other parties, mouths were wide open in the Congress

John Horgan (journalist) photo
Dara Ó Briain photo
Giacomo Casanova photo
Walter Scott photo
Jerry Coyne photo
Markandey Katju photo
Steve Martin photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo

“These terrible sociologists, who are the astrologers and alchemists of our twentieth century.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Fanatical Skepticism

Michael Swanwick photo
Albert Einstein photo

“English: Astrology is a science in itself and contains an illuminating body of knowledge. It taught me many things, and I am greatly indebted to it. Geophysical evidence reveals the power of the stars and the planets in relation to the terrestrial. In turn, astrology reinforces this power to some extent. This is why astrology is like a life-giving elixir to mankind.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Die Astrologie ist eine Wissenschaft für sich. Aber eine wegweisende. Ich habe viel aus ihr gelernt und vielen Nutzen aus ihr ziehen können. Die physikalischen Erkenntnisse unterstreichen die Macht der Sterne über irdisches Geschick. Die Astrologie aber unterstreicht in gewissem Sinne wiederum die physikalischen Erkenntnisse. Deshalb ist sie eine Art Lebens-elixier für die Gesellschaft!
German quote attributed to Einstein in Huters astrologischer Kalender 1960 [A]
Translated by Tad Mann, unidentified 1987 work
Contradicted by Denis Hamel, The End of the Einstein-Astrology-Supporter Hoax, Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 31, No. 6 (Nov-Dec 2007), pp. 39-43
Alice Calaprice, The Expanded Quotable Einstein: "Attributed to Einstein […] An excellent example of a quotation someone made up and attributed to Einstein in order to lend an idea credibility."
Misattributed

Michael Swanwick photo
Isaiah Berlin photo
Joseph Campbell photo

“Scientists refuse to study astrology, not because of prejudice or because there is a conspiracy afoot, but simply because there is not a shred of evidence that would justify the expenditure of valuable time from a career.”

Mordechai Ben-Ari (1948) Israeli computer scientist

Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 5, “Pseudoscience: What Some People Do Isn’t Science” (p. 93)

William H. McNeill photo

“In these days he promoted a bramin, by name Seeva Dew Bhut, to the office of prime minister, who embracing the Mahomedan faith, became such a persecutor of Hindoos that he induced Sikundur to issue orders proscribing the residence of any other than Mahomedans in Kashmeer; and he required that no man should wear the mark on his forehead, or any woman be permitted to burn with her husband’s corpse. Lastly, he insisted on all golden and silver images being broken and melted down, and the metal coined into money. Many of the bramins, rather than abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped the evil of banishment by becoming Mahomedans. After the emigration of the bramins, Sikundur ordered all the temples in Kashmeer to be thrown down; among which was one dedicated to Maha Dew, in the district of Punjhuzara, which they were unable to destroy, in consequence of its foundation being below the surface of the neighbouring water. But the temple dedicated to Jug Dew was levelled with the ground; and on digging into its foundation the earth emitted volumes of fire and smoke which the infidels declared to be the emblem of the wrath of the Deity; but Sikundur, who witnessed the phenomenon, did not desist till the building was entirely razed to the ground, and its foundations dug up….. “In another place in Kashmeer was a temple built by Raja Bulnat, the destruction of which was attended with a remarkable incident. After it had been levelled, and the people were employed in digging the foundation, a copper-plate was discovered, on which was the following inscription:- ‘Raja Bulnat, having built this temple, was desirous of ascertaining from his astrologers how long it would last, and was informed by them, that after eleven hundred years, a king named Sikundur would destroy it, as well as the other temples in Kashmeer’…Having broken all the images in Kashmeer, he acquired the title of the Iconoclast, ‘Destroyer of Idols’…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (AD 1389-1413)Kashmir
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Al Sharpton photo

“We built pyramids before Donald Trump even knew what architecture was. We taught philosophy and astrology [sic] and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it…Do some cracker come and tell you, ‘Well my mother and father blood go back to the Mayflower,’ you better hold your pocket. That ain’t nothing to be proud of, that means their forefathers was crooks.”

Al Sharpton (1954) American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host

Speech at Kean College (1994), transcribed in The Forward (December 1995), as quoted in Foolish Words : The Most Stupid Words Ever Spoken (2003) by Laura Ward, p. 192.

Isaac Asimov photo

“I wouldn't give an astrologer the time of day.”

In Memory Yet Green (Avon Books, 1979), p. 18
General sources

Robert Silverberg photo
David Hilbert photo
Jayant Narlikar photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Pierre-Simon Laplace photo
Cesare Pavese photo
François Bernier photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Aron Ra photo

“Science is a search for truth –whatever the truth may turn out to be, even if it’s evidently not what we wanted to believe it was. In science, it doesn’t matter what you believe; all that matters is why you believe it. This is why real science disallows faith, promising instead to remain objective, to follow wherever the evidence leads, and either correct or reject any and all errors along the way even if it challenges whatever we think we know now. But creationist organizations post written declarations of their unwavering obligation to uphold and defend their preconceived notions, declaring in advance their refusal to ever to let their minds be changed by any amount of evidence that is ever revealed. Anti-science evangelists display their statement of faith proudly on their own forums, as if admitting to a closed and dishonest mind wasn’t something to ashamed of or beg forgiveness for. They don’t want to do science. They want to un-do science! They try to segregate experimental science from historical science, ignoring the fact that both are based on empirical observations and both can be checked with testable hypotheses. Worse, they want to redefine science in general so that astrology, subjective convictions of faith, and excuses of magic can supplant the scientific method whenever necessary in defense of their beliefs. They’re only open to critical inquiry so long as that is not permitted to challenge the sacred scriptures nor vindicate any of the fields of study to which they’re already opposed. In short, everything science stands for, -or hopes to achieve- is threatened by the political agenda of these superstitious subversives.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"12th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TkY7HrJOhc Youtube (April 19, 2008)
Youtube, Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism

Michael J. Behe photo

“Under my definition, a scientific theory is a proposed explanation which focuses or points to physical, observable data and logical inferences. There are many things throughout the history of science which we now think to be incorrect which nonetheless would fit that — which would fit that definition. Yes, astrology is in fact one.”

Michael J. Behe (1952) American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate

testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, trial transcript: day 11 http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day11pm.html#day11pm132 (18 October 2005).

Aron Ra photo
Doron Zeilberger photo
Jerry Coyne photo
Jayant Narlikar photo
Stephen Fry photo

“All the cold-reading clairvoyants and the nonsensical astrologers and absurd ESP merchants and other such people who talk about vibrations and energies…. God, if there’s a word that drives me mad it’s “energy” used in a nonsensical way—don’t get me started!”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

" Last Chance to Think http://www.csicop.org/si/show/stephen_fry--last_chance_to_think/" Interview (2010) by Kylie Sturgess in Skeptical Inquirer. Vol 34 (1)
2000s

John Horgan (journalist) photo
Daniel Dennett photo

“[W]hat good to us is the gods' knowledge if we can't get it from them? How could one communicate with the gods? Our ancestors (while they were alive!) stumbled on an extremely ingenious solution: divination.

We all know how hard it is to make the major decisions of life: should I hang tough or admit my transgression, should I move or stay in my present position, should I go to war or not, should I follow my heart or my head? We still haven't figured out any satisfactory systematic way of deciding these things. Anything that can relieve the burden of figuring out how to make these hard calls is bound to be an attractive idea.

Consider flipping a coin, for instance. Why do we do it? To take away the burden of having to find a reason for choosing A over B. We like to have reasons for what we do, but sometimes nothing sufficiently persuasive comes to mind, and we recognize that we have to decide soon, so we concoct a little gadget, an external thing that will make the decision for us. But if the decision is about something momentous, like whether to go to war, or marry, or confess, anything like flipping a coin would be just too, well, flippant.

In such a case, choosing for no good reason would be too obviously a sign of incompetence, and, besides, if the decision is really that important, once the coin has landed you'll have to confront the further choice: should you honor your just-avowed commitment to be bound by the flip of the coin, or should you reconsider? Faced with such quandaries, we recognize the need for some treatment stronger than a coin flip. Something more ceremonial, more impressive, like divination, which not only tells you what to do, but gives you a reason (if you squint just right and use your imagination).

Scholars have uncovered a comically variegated profusion of ancient ways of delegating important decisions to uncontrollable externalities. Instead of flipping a coin, you can flip arrows (belomancy) or rods (rhabdomancy) or bones or cards (sortilege), and instead of looking at tea leaves (tasseography), you can examine the livers of sacrificed animals (hepatoscopy) or other entrails (haruspicy) or melted wax poured into water (ceroscopy). Then there is moleosophy (divination by blemishes), myomancy (divination by rodent behavior), nephomancy (divination by clouds), and of course the old favorites, numerology and astrology, among dozens of others.”

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Thomas Browne photo

“Who will not commend the wit of astrology? Venus, born out of the sea, hath her exaltation in Pisces.”

Thomas Browne (1605–1682) English polymath

Commonplace notebooks, Part I

Robert Rauschenberg photo

“The study of astrology was connected with that of chemistry in the form of an association of the metals with the planets”

J. R. Partington (1886–1965) British chemist

A Short History of Chemistry (1937)
Context: In Alexandria two streams of knowledge met and fused together... The ancient Egyptian industrial arts of metallurgy, dyeing and glass-making... and... the philosophical speculations of ancient Greece, now tinged with ancient mysticism, and partly transformed into that curious fruit of the tree of knowledge which we call Gnosticism.... the result was the "divine" or "sacred" art (... also means sulphur) of making gold of silver.... during the first four centuries a considerable body of knowledge came into existence. The treatises written in Greek... in Alexandria, are the earliest known books on chemistry.... The treatises also contain much of an allegorical nature... sometimes described as "obscure mysticism."... the Neoplatonism which was especially studied in Alexandria... is not so negligible as has sometimes been supposed.... The study of astrology was connected with that of chemistry in the form of an association of the metals with the planets on a supposed basis of "sympathy". This goes back to early Chaldean sources but was developed by the Neoplatonists.

“The complete failure of contemporary psychology to create anything other than a vocabulary of intellectual rubbish has encouraged astrology to resurface.”

Peter J. Carroll (1953) British occultist

Source: PsyberMagick (1995), p. 64
Context: The pseudoscience of astrology has no place in magick. Astrology has already died twice: once with the classical gods, and a second time after the Enlightenment. The complete failure of contemporary psychology to create anything other than a vocabulary of intellectual rubbish has encouraged astrology to resurface.

Karl Pearson photo
Benjamin Creme photo
William Logan (author) photo

“Two things are essential to the astrologer, namely, a bag of cowries and an almanac, When any one comes to consult him he quietly sits down, facing the sun, on a plank seat or mat, murmuring some mantrams or sacred verses, opens his bag of cowries and pours them on the floor. With his right hand he moves them slowly round and round, solemnly inciting meanwhile a stanza or two in praise of his guru or teacher and of his deity, invoking their help. He then stops and explains what, lie has been doing, at the same time taking a handful of cowries from the heap and placing them on one side. In front is a diagram drawn with chalk on tire floor and consisting of twelve compartments. Before commencing operations with the diagram he selects three or five of the cowries highest up in tho heap and places them in a line on the right-hand side. These represent Ganapati (the Belly God, the remover of difficulties), the sun, the planet Jupiter, Sarasvati (the Goddess of speech), and his own Guru or preceptor. To all of those the astrologor gives due obeisance, touching his ears and the ground three times with both hands. The cowries are next arranged in the compartments of tho diagram and are moved about from compartment to compartment by the astrologer, who quotes meanwhile tho authority on which ho makes such moves. Finally he explains the result, and ends with again worshipping the deified cowries who were witnessing the operation as spectators.”

Malabar Manual, Page 142 https://archive.org/details/MalabarLogan/page/n154
Malabar Manual (1887)

Marilyn Ferguson photo
John Allen Paulos photo
Francis Bacon photo
Bryan Caplan photo

“Bioethics is to ethics as astrology is to astronomy.”

Bryan Caplan (1971) American political scientist

Bioethics: Tuskegee vs. COVID https://www.econlib.org/bioethics-tuskegee-vs-covid (Feb 16, 2021)

Tertullian photo

“Notorious, too, are the dealings of heretics with swarms of magicians and charlatans and astrologers and philosophers — all, of course, devotees of speculation. You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine.”

Tertullian (155–220) Christian theologian

The Prescriptions Against the Heretics as translated by Stanley Lawrence Greenslade, in Early Latin Theology: Selections from Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Jerome (1956), p. 63
The Prescription Against Heretics https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0311.htm