Universe

The moon is a silver pin-head vast
That holds the heavens tent-hangings fast.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, from The Poetry of the East (1856). Metrical Specimens ... The Use of the Moon

We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the earth.
~ William A. ("Bill") Anders (from Apollo 8; 24 December 1968), quoted in A Man on the Moon: The Triumphant Story of the Apollo Space Program (1994).

I think that if advanced beings were visiting Earth, we'd know it by their laughter.
~ Bill Amend, Fox Trot

My aim is to argue that the universe can come into existence without intervention, and that there is no need to invoke the idea of a Supreme Being in one of its numerous manifestations.
~ Peter William (P.W.) Atkins, The Creation (1981). Preface

This great bully of a universe overwhelms me. The stars make me cower. I am intimidated by the immensity surrounding my own littleness.
~ Wilhelm Nero Pilate (W.N.P.) Barbellion, in The Journal of a Disappointed Man (31 March 1919). March 2, 1917 entry

One speck within vast star-space lying
Awoke, arose, resumed its clothing,
And crawled another day toward dying.
~ William Rose Benét, Animalcule. Stanza 7

For every Space larger than a red Globule of Mans blood,
Is visionary:...
And every Space smaller than a Globule of Mans blood opens
Into Eternity of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow.
~ William Blake, from Milton, a Poem in 2 Books (1804). Book the First

The Desire of Man being Infinite, the possession is Infinite, and himself Infinite.
~ William Blake, There Is No Natural Religion (1788).

The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.
~ William Blake, Night

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
~ William Blake, from Songs of Experience (1794). The Tyger

In Wilson, the whole of mankind breaks camp, sets out from home and wrestles with the universe and its gods.
~ William Bolitho, Twelve Against the Gods (1929).

The signal we have been getting loud and clear is there is a lot of ice on Mars.
~ William Boynton, The Associated Press (2 March 2002). Evidence of Plentiful Water on Mars

Light brings us the news of the Universe.
~ Sir William Henry Bragg, The Universe of Light (1933). The Nature of Light

All the world to me
Is a place of wonder.
~ William Stanley Braithwaite, in The Little Book of Modern Verse (1913). Sic Vita

If this, my soul, should be
Unprisoned from its earthly bond,
Time could not count its markless flight
Beyond that star, beyond!
~ William Stanley Braithwaite, from Lyrics of Life and Love (1904). Distances

An in-depth study of the UFO phenomenon reveals that it does not offer a happy little romp through the titillating unknown. The UFO appears more and more to be one of the grimmest realities ever confronted by the human race.
~ William Bramley, The Gods of Eden (1989).

The crux of the riddle is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing.
~ William J. Broad, in The New York Times (11 September 1984). If Theory Is Right, Most Of Universe Is Still 'Missing'

Whether what we sense of this world
is the what of this world only, or the what
of which of several possible worlds
-- which what?
~ William Bronk, The World, the Worldless (1964). Metonymy as an Approach to a Real World

All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1821). Thanatopsis (originally printed in the North American Review: 1817; written in 1811)

Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years.
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1832 edition). Song of the Stars

In three minutes, 98 percent of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced. We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich.
~ Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003). Chapter 1: How To Build A Universe

Incidentally, disturbance from cosmic background radiation is something we have all experienced. Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive, and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe.
~ Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003). Chapter 1: How To Build A Universe

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say "I want to see the manager."
~ William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine (1985). Women: A Biological Mistake?

If you rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you brush your leg against a bed or desk, if you catch your foot in a curled-up corner of a rug, or strike a toe against a desk or chair, go back and repeat the sequence. You will find yourself surprised how far off course you were to hit that window jamb, that door, that chair. Get back on course and do it again. How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can't find your way around your own apartment?
~ William S. Burroughs

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Place of Dead Roads (1983).

Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine (1985). Civilian Defense

This is the Space Age; we are here to go.
~ William S. Burroughs, in Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader (2000). Roosevelt after Inauguration and Other Atrocities (c. 1979)

To put it country simple. Earth has a lot of things other folks might want, like the whole planet. And maybe these folks would like a few changes made. Like more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and room for their way of life. We've seen this happen before, right in these United States.
~ William S. Burroughs, Just One Fix (1992 single). Quick Fix

We are like water creatures looking up at the land and air and wondering how we can survive in that alien medium. The water we live in is Time. That alien medium we glimpse beyond time is Space. And that is where we are going.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Place of Dead Roads (1983).

[Y]ou terminal time junky, haul your heavy metal ass back to Uranus.
~ William S. Burroughs, Nova Express (1964). Last Words

[T]he most important fact of this century is not that Earth is threatened in many ways. It is that for the first time in all of its history a decisive means of protecting the home planet exists. It is by using space. And it is already well under way.
~ William E. Burrows, The Survival Imperative: Using Space To Protect Earth (2006). 3: Target Earth

The more you study this world and what there is in it, the more you will believe in miracles.
~ William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, A Thousand Thoughts from Will Carleton: with Index of Subjects (1908).

Love is the life of the soul. It is the harmony of the Universe.
~ William Ellery Channing, in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Love

The universe is not a disorderly, disconnected heap, but a beautiful whole, stamped throughout with unity, so as to be an image of the One Infinite Spirit. Nothing stands alone.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Lectures On The Elevation Of The Labouring Portion Of The Community (1840). Lecture I (delivered in Boston MA; 9 January 1840)

My highway is unfeatured air,
My consorts are the sleepless stars,
And men my giant arms upbear--
My arms unstained and free from scars.
~ William Ellery Channing, the younger, from Poems, Second Series (1846). Hymn of the Earth

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Address at Trinity Institute, San Francisco, CA (7 February 1981).

For while the threat of nuclear holocaust has been significantly reduced, the world remains a very unsettled and dangerous place.
~ William S. Cohen, Statement to the Senate Armed Service Committee (22 January 1997).

Here's to the wind blowing against this lighted house
and to the vast, windless spaces between the stars.
~ Billy Collins, The Art of Drowning (1995). Cheers

[L]ove, like death, an universal leveller of mankind.
~ William Congreve, The Double Dealer (1694). Act II, scene viii

The environmental movement needs to be careful not to set itself in opposition to humanism, however strongly we may be committed to non-anthropocentric ways of thinking about the natural world and how best to protect it.
~ William Cronon, Humanist Environmentalism: A Manifesto

I have never had any occasion to change my mind on the subject. I am perfectly satisfied with what I have said in earlier days. It is quite true that a connexion has been set up between this world and the next.
~ Sir William Crookes, interview in The International Psychic Gazette (December 1917).

In studying this Fourth state of Matter we seem at length to have within our grasp and obedient to our control the little indivisible particles which with good warrant are supposed to constitute the physical basis of the universe.... We have actually touched the border land where Matter and Force seem to merge into one another, the shadowy realm between Known and Unknown which for me has always had peculiar temptations. I venture to think that the greatest scientific problems of the future will find their solution in this Border Land, and even beyond; here, it seems to me, lie Ultimate Realities, subtle, far-reaching, wonderful.
~ Sir William Crookes, Address, British Association for the Advancement of Science (22 August 1879). On Radiant Matter

[N]ature -- the word that stands for the baffling mysteries of the Universe. Steadily, unflinchingly, we strive to pierce the inmost heart of Nature, from what she is to reconstruct what she has been, and to prophesy what she yet shall be. Veil after veil we have lifted, and her face grows more beautiful, august, and wonderful, with every barrier that is withdrawn.
~ Sir William Crookes, Presidential Address, British Association for the Advancement of Science. Bristol, England (1898).

If you stay in this world, you will never learn another one.
~ W. Edwards Deming

Off we go to the ... Milky Way!
~ W. Edwards Deming

Everything lies within space, and everything happens within time.
~ William (W.) MacNeile Dixon, from The Human Situation: The Gifford lectures delivered in the University of Glasgow, 1935-1937 (1937).

In the East the wilderness has no evil connotation; it is thought of as an expression of the unity and harmony of the universe.
~ William Orville Douglas, Go East, Young Man, the Early Years: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas (1974).

World federalism is an idea that will not die. More and more people are coming to realize that peace must be more than an interlude if we are to survive; that peace is a product of law and order; that law is essential if the force of arms is not to rule the world.
~ William Orville Douglas

That natural reality is assumed rather than explained, is not proof for the existence of a creator. Introducing god as an explanatory notion only shifts the locus of the question: why would such a god exist? And, it is possible that the universe just happens to exist, without explanation.
~ Willem B. Drees, Religion, Science and Naturalism (1998). 5. Science, religion, and naturalism

I take the world to be but as a stage,
Where net-maskt men do play their personage.
~ Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes (1578). First Week, Sixth Day

The world's a stage, where God's omnipotence,
His justice, knowledge, love, and providence do act the parts.
~ Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes (1578). Dialogue between Heraclitus and Democritus

I'm not obsessed with aliens. I'm not obsessed with the paranormal. I mean, I'm interested, if you showed me an alien I'd be stunned like anybody else, and I believe if I had to make a wager and say that there is or there isn't other life in the universe, I'd probably wager that there is. I don't believe that we've been contacted by them.
~ David William Duchovny, The Charlie Rose Show (Interview; 18 June 1998).

I find in the universe so many forms of order, organization, system, law, and adjustment of means to ends, that I believe in a cosmic intelligence and I conceive God as the life, mind, order, and law of the world.
~ William James "Will" Durant, This I Believe (1954).

Those of you who specialize in science will find it hard to understand religion, unless you feel, as Newton and Voltaire did, that the harmony of the spheres reveals a cosmic mind, and unless you realize, as Pascal and Rousseau did, that man does not live by intellect alone. We are such microscopic particles in so vast a universe that none of us is in a position to understand the world.
~ William James "Will" Durant

The world is growing old;
Who would not be at rest and free
Where love is never cold?
~ Frederick William Faber, Paradise

What's wrong with this world is, it's not finished yet. It is not competed to the point where man can put his final signature to the job and say, "It is finished. We made it and it works."
~ William Faulkner, Address To the Graduating Class. Pine Manor Junior College, Wellesley MA (8 June 1953).

Space offers extraordinary potential for commerce and adventure, for new innovations and new tests of will. As Americans, we can't help but reach for the stars. It's our nature. It's our destiny.
~ Bill Frist, Remarks before the U.S. Senate on Columbus Day (11 October 2004).

[T]he sweet and liberal air
Wanders freely everywhere.
~ William Davis Gallagher, from Miami Woods, A Golden Wedding, and Other Poems (1881). V. Miscellaneous: Jubilate

That is the royal truth that we need to believe, you and I who have no "mission," and no great sphere to move in. The universe is not quite complete without my work well done.
~ William Channing Gannett, Blessed Be Drudgery: And Other Papers (1890). Blessed Be Drudgery: III

'Tis up before the sun, roaming afar,
And in its watches wearies every star.
~ William Lloyd Garrison, from Sonnets And Other Poems (1843). Freedom of the Mind (written in 1830)

It's possible, you can never know, that the universe exists only for me. If so, it's sure going well for me, I must admit.
~ Bill Gates, in Time Magazine (13 January 1997). In Search of the Real Bill Gates

The box was a universe, a poem, frozen on the boundaries of human experience.
~ William Gibson (of 'Cornell boxes'), Count Zero (March 1986).

We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The moon and I!
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, The Mikado (1885 opera).

To be in a world which is a hell, to be of that world and neither to believe in or guess at anything but that world is not merely hell but the only possible damnation: the act of a man damning himself. It may be -- I hope it is -- redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.
~ William Golding, A Moving Target (1982). Belief and Creativity (Lecture in Hamburg, Germany; 11 April 1980).

Billions and billions of stars and planets out there, and behind them all are God.
~ Billy Graham

The starres, bright sentinels of the skies.
~ William Habington, Dialogue between Night and Araphil

The will of the world is never the will of God.
~ William Hamilton, Interpretation (October 1957).

[T]he universe is governed by moral laws.
~ Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet, in Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1858-60). Volume I. Metaphysics. Lecture II. Philosophy -- Its Absolute Utility, (B). Objective

We are now on the eve of the second transit of a pair, after which there will be no other till the twenty-first century of our era has dawned upon the earth, and the June flowers are blooming in 2004. When the last transit season occurred the intellectual world was awakening from the slumber of ages, and that wondrous scientific activity which has led to our present advanced knowledge was just beginning. What will be the state of science when the next transit season arrives God only knows. Not even our children's children will live to take part in the astronomy of that day. As for ourselves, we have to do with the present ...
~ William Harkness (on the transits of Venus), Address at the Proceedings of the AAAS 31st meeting (August 1882).

[A] star that was sufficiently massive and compact would have such a strong gravitational field that light could not escape: any light emitted from the surface of the star would be dragged back by the star's gravitational attraction before it could get very far. ... Such objects are what we now call black holes.
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). Black Holes

Bodies like the earth are not made to move on curved orbits by a force called gravity; instead, they follow the nearest thing to a straight path in a curved space, which is called a geodesic. A geodesic is the shortest (or longest) path between two nearby points.
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). Space and Time

Einstein never accepted that the universe was governed by chance; his feelings were summed up in his famous statement "God does not play dice."
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). The Uncertainty Principle

Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him?
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). Conclusion

Hubble's observations suggested that there was a time, called the big bang, when the universe was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense. Under such conditions all the laws of science, and therefore all ability to predict the future, would break down. If there were events earlier than this time, then they could not affect what happens at the present time. Their existence can be ignored because it would have no observational consequences. One may say that time had a beginning at the big bang, in the sense that earlier times simply would not be defined ... there is no physical necessity for a beginning. One can imagine that God created the universe at literally any time in the past. On the other hand, if the universe is expanding, there may be physical reasons why there had to be a beginning. One could still imagine that God created the universe at the instant of the big bang, or even afterwards in just such a way as to make it look as though there had been a big bang, but it would be meaningless to suppose that it was created before the big bang. An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!
~ Stephen William Hawking, The Illustrated Brief History of Time (1996).

I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.
~ Stephen William Hawking, in The Telegraph (16 October 2001). Colonies in space may be only hope, says Hawking

If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we would know the mind of God.
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). Conclusion

It takes too many resources to send each person into space. Earth is the most suitable planet in the solar system. But unless the human race spreads into space, I doubt it will survive the next thousand years. Some accident can wipe out life on a single planet.
~ Stephen William Hawking, Lecture to the Royal Society of Edinburgh (29 September 2000). The Universe In A Nutshell

My goal is simple. It is the complete understanding of the Universe: Why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
~ Stephen William Hawking, The Washington Post (15 April 1988).

Not only does God throw dice with the universe, but he throws them where no one can see them.
~ Stephen William Hawking

One could say: "The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary." The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). The Origin and Fate of the Universe

The present evidence therefore suggests that the universe will probably expand forever, but all we can really be sure of is that even if the universe is going to recollapse, it won't do so for at least another ten thousand million years, since it has already been expanding for at least that long. This should not unduly worry us: by that time, unless we have colonized beyond the Solar System, mankind would long since have died out, extinguished along with our sun!
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). The Expanding Universe

To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.
~ Stephen William Hawking

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.
~ Stephen William Hawking

[W]e do not know what is happening at the moment farther away in the universe: the light that we see from distant galaxies left them millions of years ago and in the case of the most distant object that we have seen, the light left some eight thousand million years ago. Thus, when we look at the universe, we are seeing it as it was in the past.
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). Space and Time

We see the universe the way it is because we exist.
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). The Origin and Fate of the Universe

With the success of scientific theories in describing events, most people have come to believe that God allows the universe to evolve according to a set of laws and does not intervene in the universe to break these laws. However, the laws do not tell us what the universe should have looked like when it started -- it would still be up to God to wind up the clockwood and choose how to start it off. So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundaries or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?
~ Stephen William Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988). The Origin and Fate of the Universe

I have looked further into space than ever human being did before me.
~ William Herschel, in Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880).

[F]inding that in [the Moon] there is a provision of light and heat; also in appearance, a soil proper for habitation fully as good as ours, if not perhaps better who can say that it is not extremely probable, nay beyond doubt, that there must be inhabitants on the Moon of some kind or other?
~ William Herschel, Letter to the Rev. Dr. Nevil Maskelyne (12 June 1780).

The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.
~ William Dean Howells, in Harper's Magazine (December 1896). Oliver Wendell Holmes

Myriads of worlds spring up like the grass of night.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, quoted in Kosmos: A General Survey of Physical Phenomena of the Universe, Volume 1 (1845).

There is nothin' fair in this world
There is nothin' safe in this world
And there's nothin' sure in this world
And there's nothin' pure in this world
Look for something left in this world.
~ Billy Idol, in Billy Idol (1982 album). White Wedding

If the universe is running down like a clock, the clock must have been wound up at a date which we could name if we knew it. The world, if it is to have an end in time, must have had a beginning in time.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, God and the Astronomers (1933).

The command "Be fruitful and multiply" was promulgated, according to our authorities, when the population of the world consisted of two people.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931).

There is no breach in the order of events, of cause and effect, not because there is no will behind them, but because that will is constantly in operation.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, Truth and Falsehood in Religion; Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge to Undergraduates in the Lent Term (1906). VI. Problems and Tasks

All is not vanity in this Universe, whatever the appearances may suggest.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lecture II: Circumscription of the Topic

Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?
~ William James, An Address to the Philosophical Clubs of Yale and Brown Universities (published in the New World; June 1896). The Will to Believe

Visible nature is all plasticity and indifference, -- a moral multiverse, as one might call it, and not a moral universe.
~ William James, from The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897). Is Life Worth Living? (originally published in 1895)

We may be in the universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.
~ William James, A Pluralistic Universe (1909). VIII. Conclusions

Whatever universe a professor believes in must at any rate be a universe that lends itself to lengthy discourse. A universe definable in two sentences is something for which the professorial intellect has no use. No faith in anything of that cheap kind!
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907). Lecture I. The Present Dilemma in Philosophy

[W]hen all is said and done, we are in the end absolutely dependent on the universe; and into sacrifices and surrenders of some sort, deliberately looked at and accepted, we are drawn and pressed as into our only permanent positions of repose. Now in those states of mind which fall short of religion, the surrender is submitted to as an imposition of necessity, and the sacrifice is undergone at the very best without complaint. In the religious life, on the contrary, surrender and sacrifice are positively espoused: even unnecessary givings-up are added in order that the happiness may increase.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lecture II: Circumscription of the Topic

For he has a third eye, an inner eye, the eye of the heart, the eye of wisdom, the eye of love. When this inner eye is awakened man, blind from birth, sees the real glory and beauty and meaning of the universe.
~ William Johnston, The Inner Eye of Love: Mysticism and Religion (1978).

The hypothesis that life originated on this earth through moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world may seem wild and visionary; all I maintain is that it is not unscientific.
~ Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), Address at the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Edinburgh, Scotland (1871). On The Origin Of Life.

Do you realize that even as we sit here, we are hurtling through space at a tremendous rate of speed? Think about it. Our world is just a hanging curveball.
~ Bill "The Spaceman" Lee

And the wondrous web I try to fill
With a beautiful golden filling;
In trial's hour my heart holds still
And my soul is strong and willing.
~ William J. Lee, in The Elocutionist's Annual, Number 11 (1883). Life's Loom

And men discovered, as the earth went round,
New stars off yonder in eternity.
~ William Ellery Leonard, from Two Lives: A Poem (1923).

Unfortunately, yesterday's events are a stark reminder of the dangerous world in which we live and the serious risks to people who are firmly committed to democracy, freedom and opportunity for all ...
~ William P. Luther, Statement to the U.S. House of Representatives (12 September 2001).

It's no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1915).

There is so much more than what I ever expected. It's beyond imagination, until you actually get up and see it and experience it and feel it ... I'll tell you, there's nothing better than listening to a good album and looking out the windows and watching the world go by while you pedal on the bike.
~ William C. "Willie" McCool, National Public Radio, from the space shuttle Columbia (Interview; 30 January 2003).

I owe everything to the Pleiadians/Plejarans, for they assisted me in every possible way in obtaining all of my material. ... Without their permission I could neither have taken the photos nor shot the movie footage since I would not have been authorized to do so. Had I attempted to do so anyway, I am certain that the film would have been destroyed.
~ ("Billy") Eduard Albert Meier, Free Community of Interests for the Fringe and Spiritual Sciences and Ufological Studies (FIGU) (The Mission, 1995). An Interview with Billy Meier

Only a life form which recognizes, lives, and obeys the true knowledge of Creation, the spirit which results from it, and related laws and commandments of Creation, can live the true way and in accordance with Creation itself. This means that the life form is living with true knowledge of the truth and with the truth of Creation and spirit, in fulfillment of the Creative, natural laws and commandments which are valid universally, without any weird and false faith in illogical and anti-intelligent forms of belief.
~ ("Billy") Eduard Albert Meier, Free Community of Interests for the Fringe and Spiritual Sciences and Ufological Studies (FIGU) (An Interview from 1988). The Truth About Billy Meier - 'UFO Billy'

[G]lobal unity through global diversity is also the future of mankind.
~ Billy Mills

The acceptance of the truth that joy and sorrow, laughter and tears are not confined to any particular time, place or people, but are universally distributed, should make us more tolerant of and more interested in the lives of others.
~ William M. Peck

Our best scientists say that that intelligent life would have to be beyond our galaxy. I have always thought if they were going to look for intelligence, they ought to start right here in Washington. It is hard enough to find intelligent life right here. It may even be harder, I might say, than finding it outside our solar system.
~ William Proxmire (on continued funding of the "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" program), Remarks in the U.S. Senate (30 July 1981).

Ah! you are so great, and I am so small,
I tremble to think of you, World, at all;
And yet, when I said my prayers to-day,
A whisper inside me seemed to say,
"You are more than the earth, though you are such a dot;
You can love and think, and the earth cannot!"
~ William Brighty Rands, from Lilliput Lectures (1871). Great, Wide, Beautiful, Wonderful World

Someday I would like to stand on the moon, look down through a quarter of a million miles of space and say, "There certainly is a beautiful earth out tonight."
~ Lt. Col. William H. Rankin, The Man Who Rode the Thunder

Once we open up to the flow of energy within our body, we can also open up to the flow of energy in the universe.
~ Wilhelm Reich

We are all environmentalists now, but we are not all planetists. ... A planetist ... puts the Earth ahead of the earthlings -- places society's responsibility for the individual ahead of the individual's responsibility for himself.
~ William L. Safire, in the New York Times (16 April 1990). Essay; Earth Day's 'Planetism'

Everything alive is part of each of us, and many things which do not move as we move are part of us. The sun is part of us, the earth, the sky, the stars, the rivers, and the oceans. All things are part of us ...
~ William Saroyan, The Human Comedy (1943).

I am enormously wise and abysmally ignorant.
~ William Saroyan, Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961).

If the nations of the earth work together to solve the enormous challenge of a workable space ark, lasting world peace would be a probable result. The required creativity and competition would absorb human energies normally reserved for war.
~ William J. Sauber, The Fourth Kingdom (1975).

We are so little in the sum of things!
~ William Bell Scott, from Poems (1875 edition). Monody

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act II, scene vii

For some must watch, while some must sleep;
So runs the world away.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act III, scene ii

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act I, scene i

I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII

I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
~ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act II, scene i

It is the stars,
The stars above us, govern our conditions.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear. Act IV, scene iii

It is the very error of the moon;
She comes more nearer earth than she was wont,
And drives men mad.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act V, scene ii

It were all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And to think to wed it, he is so above me.
~ William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well

Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I

Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!
~ William Shakespeare, King John. Act II, scene i

No, I was not born under a rhyming planet.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

Now o'er the one half-world
Nature seems dead.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act II, scene i

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I

The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Act I, scene iii

The moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.
~ William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.
~ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost

There was a star danced, and under that was I born.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act II, scene i

These earthly godfathers of Heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
~ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost. Act I, scene i

This world to me is like a lasting storm,
Whirring me from my friends.
~ William Shakespeare, Pericles. Act IV, scene i

Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act II, scene vii

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I

It really means that we will develop a lot of the capabilities and technology that'll allow humans to go elsewhere away from the planet. ... So if we don't have this progress with this space station, it means that humans in space are pretty much destined to stay close to Earth, and I don't think that's what humans are about.
~ Capt. William M. Shepherd, Interview by NASA (2000).

Lithe and long as the serpent train,
Springing and clinging from tree to tree,
Now darting upward, now down again,
With a twist and a twirl that are strange to see.
~ William Gilmore Simms, The Grape-Vine Swing. Stanza 1

[A] distinct universe walks about under your hat and under mine -- all things in nature are different to each.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Volume I. Chapter XVI: More Storms in the Puddle

There is a universe within this room.
~ William Soutar, Cosmos

Like a dying star that in its explosive end scatters the material needed for the evolution of life, the supernova of the esoteric and the occult we are witnessing is both and end and a beginning.
~ William Irwin Thompson, from Darkness And Scattered Light: Four Talks On The Future (1978).

The people of the earth stood waiting, watching as the ships come one by one. Setting fire to the sky as they land, carrying to the world children of the sun.
~ Billy Thorpe, Children of the Sun (1979 single).

The widest thing in the universe is not space; it is the potential capacity of the human heart. Being made in the image of God, it is capable of almost unlimited extension in all directions.
~ Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, The Root of the Righteous (1955). Chapter 32: Narrow Mansions

And I know not to this day,
Whether guest or captive I.
~ William Watson, from Wordworth's Grave and Other Poems (1890). Miscellaneous Sonnets, Lyrics, Etc. World-Strangeness

Strange the world about me lies,
Never yet familiar grown --
Still disturbs me with surprise,
Haunts me like a face half known.
~ William Watson, from Wordworth's Grave and Other Poems (1890). Miscellaneous Sonnets, Lyrics, Etc. World-Strangeness

I was reading about how countless species are being pushed toward extinction by man's destruction of forests. Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (8 November 1989).

If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I'll bet they'd live a lot differently.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (30 June 1992).

The earth, the globular body thus covered with life, is not the only globe in the universe. There are, circling about our own sun, six others, so far as we can judge, perfectly analogous in their nature: besides our moon and other bodies analogous to it. No one can resist the temptation to conjecture, that these globes, some of them much larger than our own, are not dead and barren; -- that they are, like ours, occupied with organization, life, intelligence.
~ William Whewell, from Bridgewater Treatises (1833). Treatise III. Astronomy and General Physics, Book III: Religious Views

From 40 to 60 percent of the presidential office is not in administration but in morals, politics, and spiritual leadership. ... He has to guide a people in the greatest adventure ever undertaken on the planet.
~ William Allen White

Across unatlassed worlds of space,
And through God's mighty universe,
With thoughts that bless or thoughts that curse,
Each journeys to his rightful place.
Oh, greater truth no man has said,
"There is no death, there are no dead."
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). There is no death, there are no dead

When the great universe was wrought
To might and majesty from naught,
The all creative force was -
THOUGHT.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). The Law

[I]t is likely enough that there may be a means invented of journeying to the moon; and how happy shall they be, that are first successful in this attempt?
~ John Wilkins, The Discovery of a World in the Moon (1638).

A new star, a new king.
~ William the Conqueror, (c. April 1066)

There arose gigantic before her the edge of a world of such incredible dimensions that she was breathless at the faint hint.
~ Charles (Walter Stansby) Williams, Descent into Hell (1937).

We'll go back to the moon, this time for a much longer period of time. We'll build lunar outposts. We'll send a crew to Mars. There are no ifs around it. It's going to happen.
~ Dafydd (Dave) Rhys Williams (on the International Space Station), The McGill Reporter, Vol. 31, No. 3 (8 October 1998). Ground control to Dr. Dave

For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.
~ Donald E. Williams, quoted in The Home Planet (1988).

Thy light can visionary thoughts impart,
And lead the Muse to soothe a suff'ring heart.
~ Helen Maria Williams, from Poems on Various Subjects. With introductory remarks on the present state of science and literature in France (1823). Sonnet to the Moon

Boys and girls, look at all these stars. Can you see uranus, it's up there?
~ Robin Williams

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
~ Sarah Williams, in Twilight Hours, A Legacy of Verse (1868). Songs of Comrades. The Old Astronomer. Stanza 4

It is almost as if you were frantically constructing another world while the world that you live in dissolves beneath your feet, and that your survival depends on completing this construction at least one second before the old habitation collapses.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, in The New York Times (15 March 1953). (Also, foreword to Camino Real)

That Europe's nothin' on earth but a great big auction, that's all it is.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955).

The world is a funny paper read backwards. And that way it isn't so funny.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, in the London Observer (Self-interview; 7 April 1957).

We live in such a mysterious universe, don't we? Some people say that science clears up all the mysteries for us. In my opinion it only creates more!
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). Scene Seven

Sometimes the snow comes down in June, sometimes the sun goes around the moon.
~ Vanessa Williams, Save the Best for Last (1992 song)

It has always been the fashion to talk about the moon.
~ William Carlos Williams, Kora in Hell: Improvisations (1920). XVII

Outside
outside myself
there is a world,
he rumbled, subject to my incursions
-- a world
(to me) at rest,
which I approach
concretely --
~ William Carlos Williams, Paterson (1948). Book 2, Sunday in the Park

Every time we open our hearts, we create the space for a global alternative.
~ Marianne Williamson, Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage (1994). Part I: Thoughts. Chapter 1. Renaissance

The universe provides us with a clean slate in every moment.
~ Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles (1992).

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light.
~ Nathaniel Parker (N.P.) Willis, from Sacred Poems (1843). Contemplation

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson

It's like having astronomy without knowing where the stars are.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson

I think I got off on the wrong planet. Beam me up Scotty, there's no rational life here.
~ Robert Anton Wilson, in OMNI's Prime Time Live (Interview; 16 September 1997). High Strangeness

We all live in different sensory universes, and nobody has a guarantee that his/her universe corresponds more exactly to the alleged "real universe" than anybody else's.
~ Robert Anton Wilson, The Thing That Ate The Constitution (2002).

Pure and serene our souls should be
Till mercy's summons sets them free.
~ William Winter, from The Queen's Domain, and Other Poems (1858). What the Stars Whisper

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
~ William Wordsworth, To a Skylark. Stanza 1 (Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky, 1827)

Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none;
Look up a second time, and, one by one,
You mark them twinkling out with silvery light,
And wonder how they could elude the sight!
~ William Wordsworth, Yarrow Revisited and Other Poems (1835). Evening Voluntaries. I

The stars are mansions built by nature's hand;
And, haply, there the spirits of the blest
Live, clothed in radiance, their immortal vest.
~ William Wordsworth, The River Duddon, A Series of Sonnets; Vaudracour and Julia: and Other Poems (1820). Sonnet

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
~ William Wordsworth, from Poems in Two Volumes (1807). Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, I

A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is;
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933). Byzantium

There is another world, but it is in this one.
~ William Butler Yeats, (attributed).