Quotes about sky
page 15

Saul Kripke photo

“So even if I should say to myself that I will use 'Hesperus' to name the heavenly body I see in the evening in yonder position of the sky, it will not be necessary that Hesperus was ever seen in the evening. But it may be a priori in that this is how I have determined the referent.”

Naming and Necessity (1980, p. 291)
Context: If I use the name 'Hesperus' to refer to a certain planetary body when seen in a certain celestial position in the evening, it will not therefore be a necessary truth that Hesperus is ever seen in the evening. That depends on various contingent facts about people being there to see and things like that. So even if I should say to myself that I will use 'Hesperus' to name the heavenly body I see in the evening in yonder position of the sky, it will not be necessary that Hesperus was ever seen in the evening. But it may be a priori in that this is how I have determined the referent.

Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.”

Bk. I, Requiem (the final sentence was used on Stevenson's Gravestone).
Underwoods (1887)
Context: Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Joaquin Miller photo

“The very clouds have wept and died,
And only God is in the sky.”

Joaquin Miller (1837–1913) American judge

Source: The Ship in the Desert (1875), XXXV
Context: Lo! all things moving must go by.
The sea lies dead. Behold, this land
Sits desolate in dust beside
His snow-white, seamless shroud of sand;
The very clouds have wept and died,
And only God is in the sky.

Carl Sagan photo

“I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.”

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 4
Context: The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

“Just look up to the sky and talk to God yourself. You don't need an organization to do that.”

Margaret Singer (1921–2003) clinical psychology

"Psych Sleuth : Margaret Singer has made history delving into the psychology of brainwashing", in The San Francisco Chronicle (26 May 2002) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/26/CM67534.DTL&ao=all
2002
Context: Just look up to the sky and talk to God yourself. You don't need an organization to do that. …They're all the same, really, these groups — they prey on the most lonely, vulnerable people they can find, cage you with your own mind through guilt and fear, cut you off from everyone you knew before, and when they're done doing that, they don't need armed guards to keep you. You're afraid that if you leave, your parents will die, you will die, your life will be ruined. Flim-flam men, pimps, sharpsters — that's what they are. Liars. Tricksters. It's been the same ever since Eve got the apple, and I doubt it will ever change. A real religion is truthful, you can come or go from it if you wish. And most importantly, there is no one leader claiming he is a god. Big, big difference.

Seal (musician) photo

“Oh darlin…
In a sky full of people, only some want to fly,
Isn't that crazy?”

Seal (musician) (1963) British singer-songwriter

"Crazy"
Seal (1991)
Context: Oh darlin...
In a sky full of people, only some want to fly,
Isn't that crazy?
In a world full of people, only some want to fly,
Isn't that crazy?

Wallace Stevens photo

“Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.”

"Sunday Morning"
Harmonium (1923)
Context: We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or an old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Max Müller photo

“If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant, I should point to India.”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Context: If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant, I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of the Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw the corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human a life... again I should point to India.

India, What Can It Teach Us (1882) Lecture IV <!-- p. 118. -->

Dinah Craik photo

“Down in the deep, up in the sky,
I see them always, far or nigh,
And I shall see them till I die —”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

"Magnus and Morna", in Thirty Years, Poems New and Old (1880)
Context: p>Down in the deep, up in the sky,
I see them always, far or nigh,
And I shall see them till I die —The old familiar faces.</p

David Bowie photo

“Steel on the skyline
Sky made of glass
Made for a real world
All things must pass”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

"Heathen (The Rays)"
Song lyrics, Heathen (2002)
Context: Steel on the skyline
Sky made of glass
Made for a real world
All things must pass
Ooo
Waiting for something
Looking for someone
Is there no reason?

Miranda July photo

“Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

The Shared Patio (2005)
Context: Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

Arthur Koestler photo

“Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky. The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself.”

The Act of Creation, London, (1970) p. 253.
Context: Einstein's space is no closer to reality than Van Gogh's sky. The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself. The scientist's discoveries impose his own order on chaos, as the composer or painter imposes his; an order that always refers to limited aspects of reality, and is based on the observer's frame of reference, which differs from period to period as a Rembrant nude differs from a nude by Manet.

Edna St. Vincent Millay photo

“And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.”

"Renascence" (1912), st. 3 Renascence and Other Poems (1917)
Context: But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head;
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and, after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,
And — sure enough! — I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed to feel it touch the sky.

Dinah Craik photo

“I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in the world happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Context: I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in the world happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water. We can feel it interpenetrating our whole being with warmth and strength; we can see it in a pale reflection shining elsewhere; or in its total absence, we, walking in darkness, learn to appreciate what it is by what it is not.

Robert Frost photo

“One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

" Acquainted with the Night http://www.ketzle.com/frost/acquainted.htm" (1928)
General sources
Context: One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

E. B. White photo

“The planet holds out no such inducement. The planet is everybody's. All it offers is the grass, the sky, the water, the ineluctable dream of peace and fruition.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

"Intimations" (December 1941)
One Man's Meat (1942)
Context: Before you can be an internationalist you have first to be a naturalist and feel the ground under you making a whole circle. It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members. A club, moreover, or a nation, has a most attractive offer to make: it offers the right to be exclusive. There are not many of us who are physically constituted to resist this strange delight, this nourishing privilege. It is at the bottom of all fraternities, societies, orders. It is at the bottom of most trouble. The planet holds out no such inducement. The planet is everybody's. All it offers is the grass, the sky, the water, the ineluctable dream of peace and fruition.

Thomas Campbell photo

“And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Theodric : A Domestic Tale; and Other Poems (1825), To the Rainbow
Context: p>Can all that optics teach, unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws! And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.</p

Etty Hillesum photo

“She turned her face up to the strange stars and wondered in what direction her course lay. The sky looked blankly down upon her with its myriad meaningless eyes.”

C. L. Moore (1911–1987) American author

Black God's Kiss (1934); p. 23
Short fiction, Jirel of Joiry (1969)

Omar Bradley photo
Ho Chi Minh photo

“Revolutionary morality does not fall from the sky. It is developed and consolidated through persevering daily struggle and effort. Like jade, the more it is polished the more it shines. Like gold, it grows ever purer as it foes into the melting pot.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

"On Revolutionary Morality" (1958)
1950's, On Revolutionary Morality (1958)

Newton Lee photo
G. K. Chesterton photo
William Faulkner photo
Ajahn Maha Bua photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

25 May 1843
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)

Werner Herzog photo
Enoch Powell photo
Annie Dillard photo
Oriana Fallaci photo
Smedley D. Butler photo
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali photo

“How can even the lowest mind, if he reflects at all the marvels of this earth and sky, the brilliant fashioning of plants and animals, remain blind to the fact that this wonderful world with its settled order must have a maker to design, determine and direct it?”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

Tibawi, A.L. (ed. and tr.). (1965) Al-Risala al-Qudsiyya (The Jerusalem Epistle) “Al-Ghazali's Tract on Dogmatic Theology”. In: The Islamic Quarterly, 9:3–4 (1965), 3-4.

Baruch Spinoza photo
Anirvan photo
Rebecca Solnit photo
Anish Kapoor photo
Robert Hunter (author) photo

“The Pharisees were orthodox Jews, deeply concerned with the affairs of the Church and conscientious observers of all its ceremonies. They held its chief offices, occupied the chief places at the feasts, and sat in the chief seats in the synagogues. …Who then could have been more astonished than they when, like a thunderbolt from the sky, came the simplest, clearest, most concise and yet complete statement of fundamental religious truth that has ever been uttered?”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

In twenty-eight words Jesus stated for all time and in a manner that may be understood by everybody, the fundamental basis of Christianity—"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all mind... And Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 92-93

Harvey Fierstein photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
Alan Moore photo
Salvador Dalí photo

“Just now I'm painting a beautiful woman, smiling, burnt to a crisp, with feathers of all colors, held up by a small die of burning marble; the die is in turn held up by a little puff of smoke, churned and quite; in the sky there are asses with parrot-heads, grasses and beach sand, all about to explode, all clean, incredible objective..”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote in Dali's letter to his art-friend Lorca, 1927; as quoted in Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War, Robin Adèle Greeley, p. 67
Dali is striving then for a rational approach of his paintings; he is very probably referring to his painting, he made earlier in 1927: ' Little Ashes' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Little_Ashes.jpg
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1920 - 1930

William Wordsworth photo

“My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold, (1802); the last three lines of this form the introductory lines of the long Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood begun the next day.

Michel Henry photo
Marilyn Ferguson photo
Chief Joseph photo
Ram Prasad Bismil photo

“My faith is strongest when the night sky is clear.”

Book: Cometan, the Omnidoxy

William Wordsworth photo
William Wordsworth photo

“Had this sky (fate) got me killed with grief and pain (in my imprisoned state)! This patch (of garment) of my life would not have yielded life giving poetry!”

Masud Sa'd Salman (1046–1121) Iranian writer

Original: (ur) گردوں بہ رنج و درد مارا کشتہ بود اگر
پیوند و عمر من نہ شدے نظم جان فضائے

Plutarch photo
John Vance Cheney photo
Garth Brooks photo
Joyce Kilmer photo
Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Stephen Vincent Benét photo

“Now I tell what is very strong magic. I woke in the midst of the night. When I woke, the fire had gone out and I was cold. It seemed to me that all around me there were whisperings and voices. I closed my eyes to shut them out. Some will say that I slept again, but I do not think that I slept. I could feel the spirits drawing my spirit out of my body as a fish is drawn on a line.
Why should I lie about it? I am a priest and the son of a priest. If there are spirits, as they say, in the small Dead Places near us, what spirits must there not be in that great Place of the Gods? And would not they wish to speak? After such long years? I know that I felt myself drawn as a fish is drawn on a line. I had stepped out of my body — I could see my body asleep in front of the cold fire, but it was not I. I was drawn to look out upon the city of the gods.
It should have been dark, for it was night, but it was not dark. Everywhere there were lights — lines of light — circles and blurs of light — ten thousand torches would not have been the same. The sky itself was alight — you could barely see the stars for the glow in the sky. I thought to myself "This is strong magic" and trembled. There was a roaring in my ears like the rushing of rivers. Then my eyes grew used to the light and my ears to the sound. I knew that I was seeing the city as it had been when the gods were alive.”

Source: By the Waters of Babylon (1937)

Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Fannie Hurst photo
Prevale photo

“I turn my gaze to the sky, close my eyes creating a set of thoughts with my mind, embrace the feeling that my heart emanates... letting me live a sweet melody of sound inside me.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Rivolgo il mio sguardo al cielo, chiudo gli occhi creando con la mente un insieme di pensieri, abbraccio il sentimento che emana il mio cuore... lasciando vivere dentro me una dolce melodia del suono.
Source: prevale.net

“The family is so important when it comes to nurturing vocations that, really, they are born from a family, we don't fall out of the sky at 33 years old, wearing flowing robes. We are not hatched; we come from families.”

Stephen D. Parkes (1965) roman-catholic clergyman

Bishop brothers; Stephen and Gregory Parkes to become 1 of 11 sibling-bishops in U.S Catholic history https://www.fox13news.com/news/bishop-brothers-stephen-and-gregory-parkes-to-become-1-of-11-sibling-bishops-in-u-s-catholic-history (August 30, 2020)

John Bosco photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Gautama Buddha photo

“The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism
Gautama Buddha photo
Lin Huiyin photo

“The moon is still bright;
The lights below the hills are still on;
The sky is still full of stars
Hanging like dreams.”

Lin Huiyin (1904–1955) Chinese architect and writer

(zh-CN) 一样是月明,
一样是隔山灯火,
满天的星
只使人不见,
梦似的挂起。
"Do Not Throw Away" (《别丢掉》), translated by Michelle Yeh in A Chorus for Peace: A Global Anthology of Poetry by Women (University of Iowa Press, 2002), p. 41
Variant translation:
The moon is still so bright;
Beyond the hills the lamp sheds the same light.
The sky besprinkled with star on star,
But I do not know where you are.
It seems
You hang above like dreams.
Xu Yuanchong, Vanished Springs: The Life and Love of a Chinese Intellectual (Vantage Press, 1999), pp. 44–45

Prevale photo

“The sweetness of your face emanates so much vital light that the whole sky is tinged with red, embarrassed by your splendor.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La dolcezza del tuo volto emana così tanta luce vitale che il cielo intero si tinge di rosso, imbarazzato dal tuo splendore.
Source: prevale.net

Example (musician) photo

“We been living in a world full of free love
and the limit is the sky if we team up
yeah, we run the world, we run the world”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"Run the World" (2012), David Stewart, feat. Example
("Run the World" on YouTube (with lyrics)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSXgmDB8NOo
Other appearances

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Giuseppe Ungaretti photo

“Closed between mortal things
(Even the starry sky will end)
Why do I crave God?”

Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970) poet and writer from Italy

Dannazione (Damnation) (29 June 1916). Architecture: from time of mind to time of nature https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/techne/article/view/9757
Original: (it) Chiuso fra cose mortali
(Anche il cielo stellato finirà)
Perché bramo Dio?

Alfred Noyes photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo
Kate Bush photo

“The stars are caught in our hair
The stars are on our fingers
A veil of diamond dust
Just reach up and touch it
The sky's above our heads
The sea's around our legs
In milky, silky water
We swim further and further...”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sky of Honey (Disc 2)

Ivan Kozhedub photo

“My life is forever connected with aviation. I cannot live without the sky. I continue to improve my flying skills on modern domestic aircraft, I dream that, perhaps, I will have to lift a peaceful aircraft into space.”

Ivan Kozhedub (1920–1991) Soviet aviator, thrice hero of the Soviet Union

Source: As quoted in his memoirs in 1969, ""Без боя не уйду". Как летчик-ас Кожедуб сбивал вражеские самолеты" https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/8658487

Alastair Reynolds photo

“Nature shouldn’t be able to do this, Sunday thought. It shouldn’t be able to produce something that resembled the work of directed intelligence, something artful, when the only factors involved were unthinking physics and obscene, spendthrift quantities of time. Time to lay down the sediments, in deluge after deluge, entire epochs in the impossibly distant past when Mars had been both warm and wet, a world deluded into thinking it had a future. Time for cosmic happenstance to hurl a fist from the sky, punching down through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling through these carefully superimposed layers, drilling the geological chapters like a bullet through a book. And then yesterday more time—countless millions of years—for wind and dust to work their callous handiwork, scouring and abrading, wearing the exposed layers back at subtly different rates depending on hardness and chemistry, util these deliberate-looking right-angled steps and contours began to assume grand and imperial solidity, rising from the depths like the stairways of the gods.
Awe-inspiring, yesterday. Sometimes it was entirely right and proper to be awed. And recognising the physics in these formations, the hand of time and matter and the nuclear forces underpinning all things, did not lessen that feeling. What was she, ultimately, but the end product of physics and matter? And what was her art but the product of physics and matter working on itself?”

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Chapter 17 (pp. 292-293)

Prevale photo

“I'll dance all night, | then I'll dream of you again, | I want to fly next to you, | in this summer sky.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Cielo D'estate (Sun Mix)
Original: (it) Ballerò tutta la notte, | poi ti sognerò ancora, | io voglio volare accanto a te, | in questo cielo d'estate.
Source: Tarquini & Prevale – Cielo D'Estate (Sun Mix) https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Tarquini-Prevale/Cielo-D-estate-Sun-Mix, Musixmatch.com, June 22, 2017

Susan Cain photo
Olena Zelenska photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo