Top 61 Comets Quotes & Sayings

Small bodies in our solar system, like comets and asteroids, help us understand how the solar system formed and provide opportunities to advance exploration.

There has always been the same amount of light in the world. The new and missing stars, the comets and eclipses, do not affect thegeneral illumination, for only our glasses appreciate them.

Comets importing change of times and states, Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky And with them scourge the bad revolting stars.

The motions of the comets are exceedingly regular, and they observe the same laws as the motions of the planets, but they differ from the motions of vortices in every particular and are often contrary to them.

A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discovers are among them, as comets amongst the stars.

The language of solace, and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end.

The movement of comets is part of the ordinary works of nature which, without regard to the happiness or misery of mankind, are transported from one part of the heavens to another by virtue of the general laws of motion.

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

Aristotle's opinion... that comets were nothing else than sublunary vapors or airy meteors... prevailed so far amongst the Greeks, that this sublimest part of astronomy lay altogether neglected; since none could think it worthwhile to observe, and to give an account of the wandering and uncertain paths of vapours floating in the Ether.

We affect one another quite enough merely by existing. Whenever the stars cross, or is it comets? fragments pass briefly from one orbit to another. On rare occasions there is total collision, but most often the two simply continue without incident, neither losing more than a particle to the other, in passing.

The Best of Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Hailey and the Comets, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine all topped the charts in the '50s. Load a playlist of rock n' roll royalty. You're spoilt for choice.

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

We are surrounded by a lot of failed ecosystems; the moon being one, Mars, Venus. There?s evidence of water on Mars and rivers and it didn?t take. Also, we have planets to guard us like Jupiter and Saturn that take the hits of the comets. It is miraculous that we exist on this planet, that it took.

So that, were it the purpose of God to produce comets as signs of his wrath it would be true to say that he is quickening a false devotion almost all over the world, increasing the number of pilgrims to Mecca, multiplying the offerings to the most famous impostors, inducing men to build mosques for Mohammedan worship, causing the invention of new superstitions among the dervishes - in a word, stimulating many abominable things which otherwise might not have been.

Just as the system of the sun, planets and comets is put in motion by the forces of gravity, and its parts persist in their motions, so the smaller systems of bodies also seem to be set in motion by other forces and their particles to be variously moved in relation to each other and, especially, by the electric force.

If parents are the fixed stars in the child's universe, the vaguely understood, distant but constant celestial spheres, siblings are the dazzling, sometimes scorching comets whizzing nearby.

Whether Earth was deliberately terraformed, in other words, or whether it was seeded with the spores of life from crashed comets or whether, indeed, life arose here spontaneously and accidentally, it is reasonable to hope that we might find traces of the same kind of process on Mars.

When I was a kid in the 6th grade and first learned how to dance with a girl, we had a record called 'Shake Rattle and Roll,' made by a group called Bill Haley and His Comets: 'Get out in that kitchen and rattle them pots and pans.' It was all about mundane things.

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun.

I remember for that one moment, I believe I was hitch hiking on one of those comets, falling so fast that I'd surely burn away before I ever hit the ground.

Against filling the Heavens with fluid Mediums, unless they be exceeding rare, a great Objection arises from the regular and very lasting Motions of the Planets and Comets in all manner of Courses through the Heavens.

Now it must be asked if we can comprehend why comets signify the death of magnates and coming wars, for writers of philosophy say so. The reason is not apparent, since vapor no more rises in a land where a pauper lives than where a rich man resides, whether he be king or someone else. Furthermore, it is evident that a comet has a natural cause not dependent on anything else; so it seems that it has no relation to someone's death or to war. For if it be said that it does relate to war or someone's death, either it does so as a cause or effect or sign. De Cometis

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds.

When beggars die, there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretences to foretell events.

We want an ensemble of stars, not comets.

I am not quite sure how writing changes things, but I know that it does. It is indirect-like the trails of earthworms aerating the earth. It is not always deliberate-like the tails of glowing dust dragged by comets.

One didn't issue instructions to comets. Grown children did what they had to do, and parents could only grit their teeth and watch and pray for them to get through it.

Damn the Solar System. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered with comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better myself.

I hoped that Grace would be a little bit of the best of all of us: Scarlett's spirit, and my mother's strength, Marion's determination, and Michael's sly humor. I wasn't sure what I could give, not just yet. But I would know when I told her about the comet, years from now, I would know. And I would lean close to her ear, saying the words no one else could hear, explaining it all. The language of solace and comets, and the girls we all become, in the end.

Confusion has seized us, and all things go wrong, The women have leaped from their spheres, And, instead of fixed stars, shoot as comets along, And are setting the world by the ears!

I agree that we should go back to the moon and on to Mars. We should treat all objects in the solar system, including comets and asteroids, as exploration targets.

I’ve been looking for a long, long time, for this thing called love, I’ve ridden comets across the sky, and I’ve looked below and above. Then one day I looked inside myself, and this is what I found, A golden sun residing there, beaming forth God’s light and sound.

Cosmic systems intertwine, astral bodies drip like wine, all of nature ebbs and flows. Comets shoot across the sky, can't explain the reasons why, this is how creation goes.

People have discovered asteroids in the Main Belt that outgas like comets, and things on cometary orbits that no longer outgas - that don't have tails. We're finding all of these unique cases.

I love to revel in philosophical matters-especially astronomy. I study astronomy more than any other foolishness there is. I am a perfect slave to it. I am at it all the time. I have got more smoked glass than clothes. I am as familiar with the stars as the comets are. I know all the facts and figures and have all the knowledge there is concerning them. I yelp astronomy like a sun-dog, and paw the constellations like Ursa Major.

Human society is part of the general order, and the more our knowledge increases the less we are inclined to believe that the birth or death of princes, the rise or fall of millionaires, are matters that cause the sun to stand still or even produce the appearance of comets in the sky.

When I first heard that a comet was going to hit Jupiter, my reaction was, 'Eh. So what? Jupiter's huge. Comets are small. And so when I saw the first impact site and it was huge and dark, I was flabbergasted.

We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls.

Amorphous forms [of ice], for example, are found naturally on comets, on asteroids, and the crystalline forms are found on Earth or at least could be made on Earth with enough pressure. Nothing else does this.

Bayle, when writing on "Comets," discovered this; for having collected many things applicable to his work, as they stood quoted in some modern writers, when he came to compare them with their originals, he was surprised to find that they were nothing for his purpose! the originals conveyed a quite contrary sense to that of the pretended quoters, who often, from innocent blundering, and sometimes from purposed deception, had falsified their quotations. This is an useful story for second-hand authorities!

I wanted to feel the blood running back into my veins, even at the cost of annihilation. I wanted to shake the stone and light out of my system. I wanted the dark fecundity of nature, the deep well of the womb, silence, or else the lapping of the black waters of death. I wanted to be that night which the remorseless eye illuminated, a night diapered with stars and trailing comets. To be of night so frighteningly silent, so utterly incomprehensible and eloquent at the same time. Never more to speak or to listen or to think.

... the only other place comparable to these marvelous nether regions, must surely be naked space itself, out far beyond atmosphere, between the stars, where sunlight has no grip upon the dust and rubbish of planetary air, where the blackness of space, the shining planets, comets, suns, and stars must really be closely akin to the world of life as it appears to the eyes of an awed human being, in the open ocean, one half mile down.

Comets are like cats: they have tails, and they do precisely what they want.

But when we listened to the radio, it was Bill Haley and the Comets or the Everly Brothers.

I loved watching Cynthia Cooper growing up when she played for the Houston Comets.

I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails.

There are certain events which to each man's life are as comets to the earth, seemingly strange and erratic portents; distinct from the ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our seasons, yet true to their own laws, potent in their own influences.

But when we face the great questions about gravitation Does it require time? Is it polar to the 'outside of the universe' or to anything? Has it any reference to electricity? or does it stand on the very foundation of matter-mass or inertia? then we feel the need of tests, whether they be comets or nebulae or laboratory experiments or bold questions as to the truth of received opinions.

Ye country comets, that portend No war, nor prince's funeral, Shining unto no higher end Than to presage the grasses fall. . . .

We should go boldly where man has not gone before. Fly by the comets, visit asteroids, visit the moon of Mars. There's a monolith there. A very unusual structure on this potato shaped object that goes around Mars once in seven hours. When people find out about that they're going to say 'Who put that there? Who put that there?' The universe put it there. If you choose, God put it there.

Were I as quiet as thunder, how I'd wail and whine! One groan of mine would start the world's crumbling cloister shivering. And if I'd end up by roaring with all of its power of lungs and more - the comets, distressed, would wring their hands and from the sky's roof leap in a fever.

Just because Pluto or comets aren't as big as Jupiter doesn't mean they are not scientifically important - indeed, just the reverse is often true. Sometimes, great things come in small packages.

The moon's closeness is a huge advantage: To make it habitable, we would first have to bombard it with water-ice comets, a tricky endeavor best attempted with the many resources waiting on and near Earth.

Without any doubt, the regularity which astronomy shows us in the movements of the comets takes place in all phenomena. The trajectory of a simple molecule of air or vapour is regulated in a manner as certain as that of the planetary orbits; the only difference between them is that which is contributed by our ignorance. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.

What is there in places empty of matter? and Whence is it that the sun and planets gravitate toward one another without dense matter between them? Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain? and Whence arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world? To what end are comets? and Whence is it that planets move all one and the same way in orbs concentrick, while comets move all manner of ways in orbs very excentrick? and What hinders the fixed stars from falling upon one another?

His epitaph: Who, by vigor of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated.

What if one were up there, drifting about among suns and feeling the tails of comets fan one's forehead! How small the earth was and how puny the people; a Norway of two million provincial souls and a mortgage bank to help feed them! What was life worth at such a rate? You elbowed yourself ahead in the sweat of your face for a few mortal years, only to perish all the same, all the same!

If parents are the fixed stars in the childs universe, the vaguely understood, distant but constant celestial spheres, siblings are the dazzling, sometimes scorching comets whizzing nearby.

Astrology furnishes a splendid proof of the contemptible subjectivity of men in consequence whereof they refer everything to themselves and from every idea at once go straight back to themselves. Astrology refers the course of celestial bodies to the miserable ego; it also establishes a connection between the comets in heaven and the squabbles and rascalities on earth.