Alien Quotes (5)
... 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?
Letter to Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne (1780). Quoted in Patrick Moore, Patrick Moore on the Moon (2006), 144.
See also: | Moon (34)
However dangerous might be the shock of a comet, it might be so slight, that it would only do damage at the part of the Earth where it actually struck; perhaps even we might cry quits if while one kingdom were devastated, the rest of the Earth were to enjoy the rarities which a body which came from so far might bring it. Perhaps we should be very surprised to find that the debris of these masses that we despised were formed of gold and diamonds; but who would be the most astonished, we, or the comet-dwellers, who would be cast on our Earth? What strange being wach would find the other!
'Lettre sur la comète'. Œuvres de M. Maupertuis (1752), 203. In Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain (1986), 95-96.
Outside intelligences, exploring the solar system with true impartiality, would be quite likely to enter the sun in their records thus: Star X, spectral class G0, 4 planets plus debris.
Essay 16, 'By Jove!'. In View From a Height (1963), 227.
The only truly alien planet is Earth.
In 'Which Way to Inner Space?', New Worlds (May 1962). Quoted in The Riverside Dictionary of Biography (2004), 54.
We need not hesitate to admit that the Sun is richly stored with inhabitants.
Quoted in Edward Polehampton and John Mason Good The Gallery of Nature and Art (1818), 58.
See also: | Sun (37)
