Camille Flammarion Quotes & Sayings

If humankind - from humble farmers in the fields and toiling workers in the cities to teachers, people of independent means, those who have reached the pinnacle of fame or fortune, even the most frivolous of society women - if they knew what profound inner pleasure awaits those who gaze at the heavens, then France, nay, the whole of Europe, would be covered with telescopes instead of bayonets, thereby promoting universal happiness and peace. — Camille Flammarion

Nature is so varied in its modes of action, so multiple in the manisftations of its power, that we have no night to set any limits to its capabilities. — Camille Flammarion

Le Verrier - without leaving his study, without even looking at the sky - had found the unknown planet [Neptune] solely by mathematical calculation, and, as it were, touched it with the tip of his pen! — Camille Flammarion

What intelligent being, what being capable of responding emotionally to a beautiful sight, can look at the jagged, silvery lunar crescent trembling in the azure sky, even through the weakest of telescopes, and not be struck by it in an intensely pleasurable way, not feel cut off from everyday life here on Earth and transported toward that first step on celestial journeys? — Camille Flammarion

The universe is so immense that it appears immutable, and that the duration of a planet such as that of the earth is only a chapter, less than that, a phrase, less still, only a word of the universe's history. — Camille Flammarion

That hemisphere of the moon which faces us is better known than the earth itself; its vast desert plains have been surveyed to within a few acres; its mountains and craters have been measured to within a few yards; while on the earth's surface there are 30,000,000 square kilometres (sixty times the extent of France), upon which the foot of man has never trod, which the eye of man has never seen. — Camille Flammarion

Lightning seems a thought, which instead of being attached to a brain, is attached to an electric current. — Camille Flammarion

The supernatural does not exist. — Camille Flammarion

The present inhabitation of Mars be a race superior to ours is very probable. — Camille Flammarion

What, then, is this blue sky, which certainly does exist, and which veils from us the stars during the day? — Camille Flammarion

Always preoccupied with his profound researches, the great Newton showed in the ordinary-affairs of life an absence of mind which has become proverbial. It is related that one day, wishing to find the number of seconds necessary for the boiling of an egg, he perceived, after waiting a minute, that he held the egg in his hand, and had placed his seconds watch (an instrument of great value on account of its mathematical precision) to boil!
This absence of mind reminds one of the mathematician Ampere, who one day, as he was going to his course of lectures, noticed a little pebble on the road; he picked it up, and examined with admiration the mottled veins. All at once the lecture which he ought to be attending to returned to his mind; he drew out his watch; perceiving that the hour approached, he hastily doubled his pace, carefully placed the pebble in his pocket, and threw his watch over the parapet of the Pont des Arts. — Camille Flammarion

Lightning is like an elementary spirit, eccentric or rational, clever or silly, passing from one extreme to the other. — Camille Flammarion

If the existence of human beings leads to nothing, what is all this comedy about? — Camille Flammarion

May we attribute to the color of the herbage and plants, which no doubt clothe the plains of Mars, the characteristic hue of that planet, which is noticeable by the naked eye, and which led the ancients to personify it as a warrior? — Camille Flammarion

Men ... have had the vanity to pretend that the world creation was made for them, whilst in reality the whole creation does not suspect their existence. — Camille Flammarion

There are men who would be afraid to commit themselves on the doctrine that castor oil is a laxative. — Camille Flammarion