136 Exploration Quotes

Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries.

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

The explorers of the past were great men and we should honour them. But let us not forget that their spirit lives on. It is still not hard to find a man who will adventure for the sake of a dream or one who will search, for the pleasure of searching, not for what he may find.

The Spanish voyager, as his caravel ploughed the adjacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination, and dream that beyond the long, low margin of forest which bounded his horizon lay hid a rich harvest for some future conqueror; perhaps a second Mexico with its royal palace and sacred pyramids, or another Cuzco with its temple of the Sun, encircled with a frieze of gold. Haunted by such visions, the ocean chivalry of Spain could not long stand idle.

The biggest breakthrough in the next 50 years will be the discovery of extraterrestrial life. We have been searching for it for 50 years and found nothing. That proves life is rarer than we hoped, but does not prove that the universe is lifeless. We are only now developing the tools to make our searches efficient and far-reaching, as optical and radio detection and data processing move forward.

O world, thou choosest not the better part! It is not wisdom to be only wise, And on the inward vision close the eyes, But it is wisdom to believe the heart. Columbus found a world, and had no chart, Save one that faith deciphered in the skies; To trust the soul's invincible surmise Was all his science and his only art.

Major cities are divided into two parts; the bits that are in the guidebook and the bits that aren't. If you don't take a guidebook, you'll see a different city.

About First Landing by Robert Zubrin: Someday I'd like to read a story about competent people on Mars.

The Infinite has to be a relative concept. Go any distance: an infinite space means that there is more to be explored.

Life consists in penetrating the unknown, and fashioning our actions in accord with the new knowledge thus acquired.

I hope to refine music, study it, try to find some area that I can unlock. I don't quite know how to explain it but it's there. These can't be the only notes in the world, there's got to be other notes some place, in some dimension, between the cracks on the piano keys.

No woman has ever stepped on Little America - and we have found it to be the most silent and peaceful place in the world.

They found, like many explorers before them, that somehow, in their absence, they had got into trouble at home.

A scientific colleague tells me about a recent trip to the New Guinea highlands where she visited a stone age culture hardly contacted by Western civilization. They were ignorant of wristwatches, soft drinks, and frozen food. But they knew about Apollo 11. They knew that humans had walked on the Moon. They knew the names of Armstrong and Aldrin and Collins. They wanted to know who was visiting the Moon these days.

Because we are not in a civilization which believes strongly in oracles or sacred places, we see the full frenzy of those who killed themselves to find the sepulchre of Christ. But being in a civilization which does believe in this dogma of fact for facts' sake, we do not see the full frenzy of those who kill themselves to find the North Pole. I am not speaking of a tenable ultimate utility which is true both of the Crusades and the polar explorations. I mean merely that we do see the superficial and aesthetic singularity, the startling quality, about the idea of men crossing a continent with armies to conquer the place where a man died. But we do not see the aesthetic singularity and startling quality of men dying in agonies to find a place where no man can live - a place only interesting because it is supposed to be the meeting-place of some lines that do not exist.

I cleave the heavens and soar to the infinite. And while I rise from my own globe to others And penetrate ever further through the eternal field, That which others saw from afar, I leave far behind me.

If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out, and difficult.

I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go.

Hindu Dharma is like a boundless ocean teeming with priceless gems. The deeper you dive the more treasures you find.

I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul ... we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never saw before.

Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.

The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!

Don't keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something you have never seen before. Of course it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore around it; one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the result of thought.

Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain to see something you have never seen before. Of course it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore around it, and before you know it,something worth thinking about to occupy your mind.

Don't keep forever on the public road. Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods. Follow it up, explore around it, one discovery will lead to another.

Don't keep forever on the public road. Leave the beaten track behind occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do you will be certain to find something you have never seen before.

There are no more other worlds to conquer!

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die.

We embarked on our cosmic voyage with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.

We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe, to gain a new foothold on the moon, and to prepare for new journeys to worlds beyond our own.

The traveler has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and he has to wonder through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

I present you with a Key : I have not heard of the like yet framed, since it pleased God to bring that mighty continent of America to light. Others of my countrymen have often, and excellently, and lately, written of the country, and none that I know beyond the goodness and worth of it. This Key respects the native language of it, and happily may unlock some rarities concerning the natives themselves, not yet discovered.

In the deep discovery of the Subterranean world, a shallow part would satisfy some enquirers.

Yeah runnin' down a dream that never would come to me. Workin' on a mystery, goin' wherever it leads. I'm runnin' down a dream.

The mastery of space is man's greatest adventure and his most inspiring undertaking. It should spur us to maximum effort. The nation which mastered all of man's earthly environment- land, sea and air- owes to its destiny the mastery of the limitless environment of space.

Know you, boy, women are like cats and must explore any new place until they are satisfied. If they don't they become weak and vain, fretful and ill

Jagger had gone through there. Harley also went through. Somewhere he did not know, somewhere whose existence he had not guessed.: Somewhere that wasn't the house.:

'Sir Edmund Hillary : King Of The World' in NZEdge

That risks were involved, all of us knew; but none, so far as we could foresee, that were too great. Otherwise, as leader of a big polar expedition, and subject to all the responsibilities implicit in command, I could not have gone. That I miscalculated is proved by the fact that I nearly lost my life. Yet, I do not regret going. ~ Ch. 1

'I am the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria,

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Space, here I come!

From where I stand, I do not see the lost people of the South Seas, the defeated and the despairing, shrunken shadows of those who went before. What I observe are the proud descendants of some of the most remarkable explorers and settlers who ever lived. We carry the cultural and historical inheritance of ocean navigators of peerless skill and their courageous kin who crossed vast distances before the tribes of Europe had ventured forth from their small part of the earth. Our forebearers populated islands scattered over the world's greatest stretch of water, covering a fifth of the planet's surface. It was one of the most amazing migrations in history, a triumphant testimony to human endurance, fortitude and achievement.

If we do not add something to the knowledge of cosmic rays by our trip to the stratosphere this summer, we had better not go. We had better stay on the ground, be hewers of wood and drawers of water.

The beekeeper and the Sherpa, one from a remote former colony of the Crown on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, the other from the edge of the heavens. They affirmed the power of humble determination and, placing themselves firmly with the mythic paradigms of their respective cultures, won one for the underdogs. ... On this lonely planet of freeze dried food, computer generated fabrics and commercialised mountain climbing, it is almost impossible to imagine the earth-shaking impact that Hillary and Norgay's achievement had in 1953. For many it represented the last of the earth's great challenges. It placed Hillary in the lineage of great terrestrial explorers. ... His achievement as one of mankind's great accomplishments came at one of the last times in history when such a feat could still be recognised as a distinctly human one, and not technological. ... Hillary's near-mythical status puts him on a plateau above sporting heroes, for he has distinguished himself well beyond the singularity of a mountain. From a feat that would have been the crowning achievement of many careers, he has gone on to become a humanitarian, an ambassador and elder statesman, never giving up, never giving in to either despair or complacency, always planning the next goal.

It was prince Igor who decided already many years before Peter the Great to cut an opening to Europe. But as he didn't know where Europe was, he cut it in a wrong direction, namely to Asia.

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.

All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there.

We have abolished space here on the little Earth; we can never abolish the space that yawns between the stars. Once again, as in the days when Homer sang, we are face-to-face with immensity and must accept its grandeur and terror, its inspiring possibilities and its dreadful restraints.

Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.

I should be judged as a captain who went from Spain to the Indies to conquer a people numerous and warlike, whose manners and religion are very different from ours, who live in sierras and mountains, without fixed settlements, and where by divine will I have placed under the sovereignty of the King and Queen our Lords, an Other World, whereby Spain, which was reckoned poor, is become the richest of countries.

I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone.

Saw pardelas and a green rush near the vessel. The crew of the Pinta saw a cane and a log; they also picked up a stick which appeared to have been carved with an iron tool, a piece of cane, a plant which grows on land, and a board. The crew of the Nina saw other signs of land, and a stalk loaded with rose berries. These signs encouraged them, and they all grew cheerful.

At two o'clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues' distance; they took in sail and remained under the square-sail lying to till day, which was Friday, when they found themselves near a small island, one of the Lucayos, called in the Indian language Guanahani. Presently they descried people, naked, and the Admiral landed in the boat, which was armed, along with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and Vincent Yanez his brother, captain of the Nina. The Admiral bore the royal standard, and the two captains each a banner of the Green Cross, which all the ships had carried; this contained the initials of the names of the King and Queen each side of the cross, and a crown over each letter Arrived on shore, they saw trees very green many streams of water, and diverse sorts of fruits.

The Admiral says that he never beheld so fair a thing: trees all along the river, beautiful and green, and different from ours, with flowers and fruits each according to their kind, many birds and little birds which sing very sweetly.

When there are such lands there should be profitable things without number.

I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent which was hitherto unknown. I am greatly supported in this view by reason of this great river, and by this sea which is fresh.

I have always read that the world, both land and water, was spherical, as the authority and researches of Ptolemy and all the others who have written on this subject demonstrate and prove, as do the eclipses of the moon and other experiments that are made from east to west, and the elevation of the North Star from north to south.

Your Highnesses have an Other World here, by which our holy faith can be so greatly advanced and from which such great wealth can be drawn.

The tempest was terrible and separated me from my [other] vessels that night, putting every one of them in desperate straits, with nothing to look forward to but death. Each was certain the others had been destroyed. What man ever born, not excepting Job, who would not have died of despair, when in such weather seeking safety for my son, my brother, shipmates, and myself, we were forbidden [access to] the land and the harbors which I, by God's will and sweating blood, had won for Spain?

If Columbus had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock.

So Columbus said, somebody show me the sunset and somebody did and he set sail for it, And he discovered America and they put him in jail for it, And the fetters gave him welts, And they named America after somebody else.

He gave the world another world.

Oh the things you can find If you don't stay behind!

In the places I go there are things that I see That I never could spell if I stopped with the Z. I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends. My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!

So, on beyond Z! It's high time you were shown That you really don't know All there is to be known.

If you never did You should. These things are fun. These things are good.

The more that you read, The more things you will know. The more that you learn, The more places you'll go.

You've got to say something. You can't go down to the moon and go, 'Oh, it's all sticky! It's covered in jam!'

Bugsby's reach is long as time, His reach is wide as wind is, He can pick you nettles in Greenwich Marsh And docks in the East Indies.

The sea with an end can be Greek or Roman: / the endless sea is portuguese.

My curiosity sister of larks.

Go where we will on the surface of things, men have been there before us.

The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact, though that fact be his neighbor, there is an unsettled wilderness between him and Canada, between him and the setting sun, or, farther still, between him and it.

We that acquaint ourselves with every zone, And pass both tropics and behold the poles, When we come home, are to ourselves unknown, And unacquainted still with our own souls.

And now good morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room, an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

God has made man a cosmopolite. He created seas for ships to glide on, the wind to push them, and the stars to guide them even in darkest night.

We are beginning to realize that even the most fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most human beings develop not more than a small fraction of their potential mental and spiritual efficiency. The human race, in fact, is surrounded by a large area of unrealized possibilities, a challenge to the spirit of exploration.

I would like them all to enjoy life and try different things until there is something they really like.

So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reason to hope for success, but merely being willing to risk the experiment of finding whether the truth they seek lies there.

Justifying space exploration because we get non-stick frying pans is like justifying music because it is good exercise for the violinist's right arm.

Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind.

Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: 'One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.'

Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behin the Ranges - Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!

Go then; there are other worlds than these.

Science fiction, outside of poetry, is the only literary field which has no limits, no parameters whatsoever. You can go not only into the future, but into that wonderful place called 'other', which is simply another universe, another planet, another species.

The first thing that the human species has to do to prepare itself for the cosmic office to which it finds itself appointed is to explore human nature, to find out what are the possibilities open to it (including, of course, its limitations, whether inherent or imposed by the facts of external nature)... The great men of the past have given us glimpses of what is possible in the way of personality, of intellectual understanding, of spiritual achievement, of artistic creation. But these are scarcely more than Pisgah glimpses. We need to explore and map the whole realm of human possibility, as the realm of physical geography has been explored and mapped. How to create new possibilities for ordinary living? What can be done to bring out the latent capacities of the ordinary man and woman for understanding and enjoyment; to teach people the techniques of achieving spiritual experience (after all, one can acquire the technique of dancing or tennis, so why not of mystical ecstasy or spiritual peace?); to develop native talent and intelligence in the growing child, Instead of frustrating or distorting them?

Why not?

Heart of Darkness (1902)