Quotes by Edwin Powell Hubble

“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.”

“The great spirals... apparently lie outside our stellar system.”

“We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe.”

Science is the one human activity that is truly progressive. The body of positive knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation.

With increasing distance, our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary—the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.

The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.

We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe.

“The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.”