The phenomena of nature, especially those that fall under the inspection of the astronomer, are to be viewed, not only with the usual attention to facts as they occur, but with the eye of reason and experience.

I have tried to improve telescopes and practiced continually to see with them. These instruments have play'd me so many tricks that I have at last found them out in many of their humours.

The heavens are now seen to resemble a luxuriant garden, which contains the greatest variety of productions, in different flourishing beds.

The difference of the degrees in which the individuals of a great community enjoy the good things of life has been a theme of declaration and discontent in all ages.

I have looked further into space than ever human being did before me. I have observed stars of which the light, it can be proved, must take two million years to reach the earth.

We need not hesitate to admit that the Sun is richly stored with inhabitants.

That planet has a considerable but moderate atmosphere. So that the inhabitants probably enjoy a situation in many respects similar to ours.

... finding 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?

He broke through the barriers of the skies.

The undevout astronomer must be mad.

By reflecting a little on this subject I am almost convinced that those numberless small Circuses we see on the moon are the works of the Lunarians and may be called their Towns.

I have looked farther into space than ever a human being did before me.

Since stars appear to be suns, and suns, according to the common opinion, are bodies that serve to enlighten, warm, and sustain a system of planets, we may have an idea of the numberless globes that serve for the habitaton of living creatures.

Seeing is in some respect an art, which must be learnt.

We see it [the as-yet unseen, probable new planet, Neptune] as Columbus saw America from the coast of Spain. Its movements have been felt, trembling along the far-reaching line of our analysis with a certainty hardly inferior to that of ocular demonstration.