Wisdom cannot be directly transmitted, and does not readily accumulate through the ages.

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

Astronomy is something like the ministry. No one should go into it without a call. I got that unmistakable call, and I know that even if I were second-rate or third-rate, it was astronomy that mattered.

The outstanding feature, however, is the possibility that the velocity-distance relation may represent the de Sitter effect, and hence that numerical data may be introduced into discussions of the general curvature of space.

The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.

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

The great spirals, with their enormous radial velocities and insensible proper motions, apparently lie outside our Solar system.