Percival Lowell Quotes
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Bright points in the sky or a blow on the head will equally cause one to see stars.
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Ever since celestial mechanics in the skillful hands of Leverrier and Adams led to the world-amazed discovery of Neptune, a belief has existed begotten of that success that still other planets lay beyond, only waiting to be found.
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There are celestial sights more dazzling, spectacles that inspire more awe, but to the thoughtful observer who is privileged to see them well, there is nothing in the sky so profoundly impressive as the canals of Mars. Fine lines and little gossamer filaments only, cobwebbing the face of the Martian disk, but threads to draw one's mind after them across the millions of miles of intervening void.
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Speculation has been singularly fruitful as to what these markings on our next to nearest neighbor in space may mean. Each astronomer holds a different pet theory on the subject, and pooh-poohs those of all the others. Nevertheless, the most self-evident explanation from the markings themselves is probably the true one; namely, that in them we are looking upon the result of the work of some sort of intelligent beings. . . . The amazing blue network on Mars hints that one planet besides our own is actually inhabited now.
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Are physical forces alone at work there, or has evolution begotten something more complex, something not akin to what we know on Earth as life? It is in this that lies the peculiar interest of Mars.
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Imagination is as vital to any advance in science as learning and precision are essential for starting points.
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The whole object of science is to synthesize, and so simplify; and did we but know the uttermost of a subject we could make it singularly clear.
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That Mars is inhabited by beings of some sort or other we may consider as certain as it is uncertain what these beings may be.
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If astronomy teaches anything, it teaches that man is but a detail in the evolution of the universe, and the resemblant though diverse details are inevitably to be expected in the hosts of orbs around him. He learns that, though he will probably never find his double anywhere, he is destined to discover any number of cousins scattered through space.
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Imagination is as vital to any advance in science as learning and precision are essential for starting points. Let me warn you to beware of two opposite errors: of letting your imagination soar unballasted by facts, but on the other hand, of shackling it so solidly that it loses all incentive to rise.
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War is a survival among us from savage times and affects now chiefly the boyish and unthinking element of the nation.
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Now when we think that each of these stars is probably the centre of a solar system grander than our own, we cannot seriously take ourselves to be the only minds in it all.
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Formulae are the anaesthetics of thought, not its stimulants and to make any one think is far better worth while than cramming him with ill-considered, and therefore indigestible, learning.
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Irrigation, unscientifically conducted, would not give us such truly wonderful mathematical fitness [as we observe in the Martian canals]. . . . A mind of no mean order would seem to have presided over the system we see-a mind certainly of considerably more comprehensiveness than that which presides over the various department of our own public works.
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Related Authors
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Robert Sutton Harrington Astronomer -
William Herschel Astronomer -
Robert Lowell Poet -
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H. G. Wells Writer -
Clyde Tombaugh Astronomer -
James Russell Lowell Poet -
Edward E. Barnard Astronomer -
Edgar Rice Burroughs Writer -
Camille Flammarion Astronomer -
Edwin Powell Hubble Astronomer -
Amy Lowell Poet