Clarke, Arthur C. -- How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village, Part 4, ch. 27 (1992)

Dave — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 23:01:02 +0000

The Universe appears to be a device contrived for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers.

Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) British writer
How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village, Part 4, ch. 27 (1992)
(Source)

A number of variants can be found, e.g., "I sometimes think the universe is a machine designed for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers" or "The universe: a device contrived for the perpetual astonishment of astronomers." The above is the only one I could find from a source by Clarke himself.

FitzGerald, Edward -- “Chronomoros,” l. 33ff, Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal (5 Dec 1840)

Dave — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 23:56:21 +0000

Whether we wake or we sleep,
Whether we carol or weep,
The Sun with his Planets in chime,
Marketh the going of Time.

Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) English writer, poet, translator
“Chronomoros,” l. 33ff, Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal (5 Dec 1840)
(Source)

Kepler, Johannes -- The Harmonies of the World [Harmonices Mundi], Book 5, Introduction (1618)

Dave — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 00:37:04 +0000

Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, three months ago broad daylight, but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen — nothing holds me back. I can give myself up to the sacred frenzy, I can have the insolence to make a full confession to mortal men that I have stolen the golden vessel of the Egyptians to make from them a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt. If you forgive me I shall rejoice; if you are angry, I shall bear it; I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) German astronomer
The Harmonies of the World [Harmonices Mundi], Book 5, Introduction (1618)

Alt. trans.:

"It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer." [in David Brewster, The Martyrs of Science; or, the Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (1841)]
"It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
"I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of heavenly harmony ... I write a book for the present time, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for its readers, as God has also waited six thousand years for an onlooker." [in S Krantz and B Blank, Calculus: Multivariable (2006)]
"I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far far away from the boundaries of Egypt. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice.; if you are enraged with me, I shall bear it. See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him."

WIST Quotations

Clarke, Arthur C. -- How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village, Part 4, ch. 27 (1992)

FitzGerald, Edward -- “Chronomoros,” l. 33ff, Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal (5 Dec 1840)

Kepler, Johannes -- The Harmonies of the World [Harmonices Mundi], Book 5, Introduction (1618)