“Black holes are the seductive dragons of the universe, outwardly quiescent yet violent at the heart, uncanny, hostile, primeval, emitting a negative radiance that draws all toward them, gobbling up all who come too close…”
- Robert Coover, American Novelist
“We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
- John F. Kennedy, American President
“I was star-struck at age nine. Having been born in the Bronx, I thought I knew how many stars there were in the night sky, about a dozen. Then you go into the dome of the planetarium and then thousands of stars come out. I just thought it was a hoax.”
~ Neil de Grasse Tyson, American Astronomer
Oral tradition is important in all societies, despite the reliance of some cultures on written records and accounts. These traditions account for the ways things are and often the way they should be, and assist people in educating the young and teaching important lessons about the past and about life. Because many oral traditions are highly structured and are told faithfully without alteration, they can be as reliable as other non-oral ways of recording and passing on experiences.
“A life spent in the routine of science need not destroy the
Robert Ritzenthaler and Frederick Peterson: An “Ethnographer’s Paradise” (1954)