26 Quotes by Edwin Powell Hubble

The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons.

With increasing distance, our knowledge fades, and fades rapidly. Eventually, we reach the dim boundary—the utmost limits of our telescopes. There, we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial. The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.

Science is the one human activity that is truly progressive. The body of positive knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation.

Observations always involve theory.

Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.

We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe.

The great spirals... apparently lie outside our stellar system.

A scientist naturally and inevitably ... mulls over the data and guesses at a solution. He proceeds to testing of the guess by new data-predicting the consequences of the guess and then dispassionately inquiring whether or not the predictions are verified.

There we measure shadows, and we search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely more substantial.