Last Updated: August 17, 2022 by Quote.cc Team
Are you looking for inspirational space quotes and meaningful sayings? Here you’ll find an incredible selection of quotes and deep thoughts from the world’s top thinkers and celebrities.
Humans have been wondering about space for centuries, but we have only been able to visit space with the advancement of science in the last century. Space is a giant leap for humankind.
On July 20th, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins operated the Saturn V rocket, departing the Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m EDT and landing the moon module (the Eagle) at 4:18 p.m EDT.
With over half a billion people watching live on television, Neil Armstrong climbed the ladder and proclaimed: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Aldrin joined him shortly afterward, offering the people at home a simple but powerful description of the moon’s surface: “magnificent desolation.” The astronauts explored the lunar surface for two and a half hours, taking photos and collecting samples.
Before heading back to Earth, the crew left behind an American flag, a patch honoring the fallen crew of Apollo 1, and a plaque on one of the Eagle’s legs. It reads, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all humanity.”
We’ve handpicked each of the space quotes below and added my favorite famous astronaut quotes and quotes about space exploration from the world’s best novelists, teachers, engineers, actors, science communicators, screenwriters, entrepreneurs, and inspirational speakers.
101 Space Quotes
Top 10 Space Quotes
“Every generation has the obligation to free men’s minds for a look at new worlds . . . to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.” – Ellison S. Onizuka
“In my studies of astronomy and philosophy I hold this opinion about the universe, that the Sun remains fixed in the centre of the circle of heavenly bodies, without changing its place; and the Earth, turning upon itself, moves round the Sun.” – Galileo Galilei
“Einstein was searching for String Theory. It not only reconciles General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics, but it reconciles Science and the Bible as well.” – Roy H. Williams
“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.” – Stephen Hawking
“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” – Galileo Galilei
“When I orbited the Earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how beautiful our planet is. Mankind, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it!” – Yuri Gagarin
“Space is for everybody. It’s not just for a few people in science or math, or for a select group of astronauts. That’s our new frontier out there, and it’s everybody’s business to know about space.” – Christa McAuliffe
“I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here.” – Arthur C. Clarke
“Every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable.” – John F. Kennedy
“I cannot join the space program and restart my life as an astronaut, but this opportunity to connect my abilities as an educator with my interests in history and space is a unique opportunity to fulfill my early fantasies. I watched the space program being born, and I would like to participate.” – Christa McAuliffe
Short Space Quotes
“The American, by nature, is optimistic.” – John F. Kennedy
“How instructive is a star!” – Piet Hein
“Gravity hurts.” – Viktor Alexandrov
“She had always loved the stars.” – Sasha Alsberg
“Through you, we feel as giants, once again.” – President Ronald Reagan
“Planet Earth is actually a giant spaceship floating through space.”
“Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns.” – Carl Sagan
“It is a fixer upper of a planet but we could make it work.” – Elon Musk
“Astronauts are inherently insane. And really noble.” – Andy Weir
“Things aren’t scary. People are scared.” – Chris Hadfield
“There can be no centre in infinity.” – Lucretius
“Curiosity is the essence of our existence.” – Gene Cernan
“Without space, there is no time.” – Dejan Stojanovic
“We are limited only by our imagination and our will to act.” – Ron Garan
“Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.” – Neil Armstrong
“I see Earth! It is so beautiful.” – Yuri Gagarin
Famous Space Quotes
“We are finite, in that we are a product and source of the infinite.” – Ilyas Kassam
“Our two greatest problems are gravity and paperwork. We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.” – Wernher von Braun
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” – Carl Sagan
“The supreme reality of our time is…our common vulnerability on this planet.” – John F. Kennedy
“We will know which stars to visit. Our descendants will then skim the light years, the children of Thales and Aristarchus, Leonardo and Einstein.” – Carl Sagan
“Don’t tell me that man doesn’t belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go – and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.” – Wernher von Braun
“The Earth was small, light blue, and so touchingly alone, our home that must be defended like a holy relic.” – Alexi Leonov
“The eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace.” – John F. Kennedy
“In the field of technology, simplification is always an enormous advance…”
“Say hello to my mother and father…the Earth and Space.” – Jimi Hendrix
“Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.” – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
“This is a day we have managed to avoid for a quarter of a century. We’ve talked about it before and speculated about it, and it finally has occurred. We hoped we could push this day back forever.” – Astronaut John Glenn
“NASA’s next urgent mission should be to send good poets into space so they can describe what it’s really like.” – Shannon Hale
“The thing I’ll remember most about the flight is that it was fun. In fact, I’m sure it was the most fun that I’ll ever have in my life.” – Sally K. Ride
“In the past, it was only in science fiction novels that you could read about ordinary people being able to go to space… But you laid the foundation for space tourism.” – Nursultan Nazarbayev
“I thought the attractions of being an astronaut were actually, not so much the moon, but flying in a completely new medium.” – Neil Armstrong
“This means that most of the lunar surface material has a consistency that is finer than granulated sugar.” – Maggie Aderin-Pocock
“Cosmology does, I think, affect the way that we perceive humanity’s role in nature. One thing we’ve learnt from astronomy is that the future lying ahead is more prolonged than the past. Even our sun is less than halfway through its life.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
“To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.” – Stephen Hawking
“If offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.” – Christa McAuliffe
“I looked and looked but I didn’t see God.” – Yuri Gagarin
“Space travel is life-enhancing, and anything that’s life-enhancing is worth doing. It makes you want to live forever.” – Ray Bradbury
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Albert Einstein
“Discover the force of the skies O Men: once recognised it can be put to use.” – Johannes Keple
“Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.” – Albert Einstein
“Earth is a small town with many neighborhoods in a very big universe.” – Ron Garan
“Let’s light this fire one more time, Mike, and witness this great nation at its best.” – Christopher Ferguson
“I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.” – Allan Shepard
Outer Space Quotes
“When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.” – Alan Shepherd
“For every one billion particles of antimatter there were one billion and one particles of matter. And when the mutual annihilation was complete, one billionth remained – and that’s our present universe.” – Albert Einstein
“The universe is not a stagnant place where technology stands still and only the few govern its destiny.” – R.G. Risch
“I don’t know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets.” – John Glenn
“Most of what Einstein said and did has no direct impact on what anybody reads in the Bible. Special relativity, his work in quantum mechanics, nobody even knows or cares. Where Einstein really affects the Bible is the fact that general relativity is the organizing principle for the Big Bang.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
“In this single galaxy of ours there are eighty-seven thousand million suns.” – Arthur C. Clarke
“Let’s face it, space is a risky business. I always considered every launch a barely controlled explosion.” – Aaron Cohen
“Mars has been flown by, orbited, smacked into, radar examined, and rocketed onto, as well as bounced upon, rolled over, shoveled, drilled into, baked and even blasted. Still to come: Mars being stepped on.” – Buzz Aldrin
“The man who eventually reached the moon would be traveling in a vessel made of earthly materials.” – Pierre Boulle
“Unless humanity gives top priority to the space science, there will be no future for the humanity!” – Mehmet Murat ildan
“Yet, for most of us, the most memorable sight was not of the moon but of our beautiful blue and white home, moving majestically around the sun, all alone in the infinite black space.” – Alan Bean
“During that time, there will be advances in nanotechnology, space sailing, robotics, biomolecular engineering, and artificial intelligence.” – Louis Friedman
“In the context of general relativity, space almost is a substance. It can bend and twist and stretch, and probably the best way to think about space is to just kind of imagine a big piece of rubber that you can pull and twist and bend.” – Alan Guth
“I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand. years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.” – Stephen Hawking
“Space has the ability to produce a triple bottom line, or ROIII: Return on Investment, Innovation, and Inspiration.” – Robert C. Jacobson
“All of a sudden, space isn’t friendly. All of a sudden, it’s a place where people can die. . . . Many more people are going to die. But we can’t explore space if the requirement is that there be no casualties; we can’t do anything if the requirement is that there be no casualties.” – Isaac Asimov
Time And Space Quotes
“Time is the mind of space.” – Samuel Alexander
“What we call ‘time’ isn’t chronological but spatial; what we call ‘death’ is merely a transition between different kinds of matter.” – Stephane Audeguy
“O Space and Time and stars at strife, How dreadful your infinity!” – George Sterling
“Love is the one thing that transcends time and space.” – Matthew McConaughey
“Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time.” – Doris Lessing
“The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.” – John F. Kennedy
Space Exploration Quotes
“It the rocket will free man from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. It will open to him the gates of heaven.” – Wernher von Braun
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” – Carl Sagan
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” – Carl Sagan
“So you say, ‘Well, we can try to go to Europa, but it might fail, or maybe the technology won’t come for yet another decade or we know how to get to Mars. We know how to do air bags and drop rovers and those sort of things, so let’s do that.’ So we’re prioritizing not so much the science but we’re prioritizing what’s doable.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
“God has no intention of setting a limit to the efforts of man to conquer space.” – Pope Pius XII
“Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate.” – Seneca
“Space, it says, is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is.” – Douglas Adams
“To be the first to enter the cosmos, to engage, single-handed, in an unprecedented duel with nature—could one dream of anything more?” – Yuri Gagarin
“Some say that we should stop exploring space, that the cost in human lives is too great. But Columbia’s crew would not have wanted that. We are a curious species, always wanting to know what is over the next hill, around the next corner, on the next island. And we have been that way for thousands of years.” – Stuart Atkinson
“Yes, there have been ET visitations. There have been crashed craft. There have been material and bodies recovered.” – Edgar D. Mitchell
“When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.” – Albert Einstein
“This country was conquered by those who moved forward, and so will space.” – John F. Kennedy
“Of course risk is part of spaceflight. We accept some of that to achieve greater goals in exploration and find out more about ourselves and the universe.” – Lisa Nowak
“If we adopt the same collaborative mindset and practices that got to the moon and back, and that built the International Space Station, we can alleviate poverty—and do much more.” – Ron Garan
“The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were only aware of one Earth.” – Sultan Bin Salman al-Suad
“Where the stars are scattered thinly,’ quoted Barr, ‘And the cold of space seeps in.” – Isaac Asimov
“Sure, there are dead stars. But at least before they died, they were stars. And their death was a supernova – their death demanded attention.” – Jasmine Warga
“The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.” – Edwin Powell Hubble
“Anyone who sits on top of the largest hydrogen-oxygen fueled system in the world; knowing they’re going to light the bottom—and doesn’t get a little worried—does not fully understand the situation.” – John Young
“I remember growing up thinking that astronauts and their job was the coolest thing you could possibly do… But I absolutely couldn’t identify with the people who were astronauts. I thought they were movie stars.” – David M. Brown
“Shuttles raced to the presumed safety of the planet below while fighters crisscrossed the perimeter of the station.” – G.S. Jennsen
“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.” – William Burroughs
“A sense of the unknown has always lured mankind and the greatest of the unknowns of today is outer space. The terrors, the joys and the sense of accomplishment are epitomized in the space program.” – William Shatner
“Life, forever dying to be born afresh, forever young and eager, will presently stand upon this Earth as upon a footstool, and stretch out its realm amidst the stars.” – H. G. Wells
“I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.” – Stephen Hawking
“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program.” – Larry Niven
“I’m convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.” – Wernher Von Braun
“Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there.” – John F. Kennedy
“It’s easy to sleep floating around — it’s very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don’t float into somebody or something!” – James Irwin
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” – Neil Armstrong
“Part of life’s mystery depends on future possibilities, and mystery is an elusive quality which evaporates when sampled frequently, to be followed by boredom.” – Michael Collins
Final Thoughts
We are in many ways unimaginably small within this universe, yet uniquely special. We have the power to go to space, are self aware, and masters of our own destiny. Yet we are on a small planet circling a very average star, spiraling around a massive galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars. That galaxy, on top of that, is just one of billions of galaxies. Yet we are alive today, and that is a gift no one can undervalue.