Astronomy is not the apex of science or of invention. But it is a test of the cast of temperament and mind that underlies a culture.
Jacob BronowskiThe world today is made, it is powered by science; and for any man to abdicate an interest in science is to walk with open eyes towards slavery.
Jacob BronowskiThe air in a man's lungs 10,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000 atoms, so that sooner or later every one of us breathes an atom that has been breathed before by anyone you can think of who has ever lived - Michelangelo or George Washington or Moses.
Jacob BronowskiOne aim of physical sciences had been to give an exact picture the material world. One achievement of physics in the twentieth century has been to prove that that aim is unattainable.
Jacob BronowskiThe most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well and, having done it well, he loves to do it better. You see it in his science. You see it in the magnificence with which he carves and builds, the loving care, the gaiety, the effrontery. The monuments are supposed to commemorate kings and religions, heroes, dogmas, but in the end the man they commemorate is the builder.
Jacob Bronowski