Astrology

Hand-coloured version of the anonymous Flammarion woodcut

Astrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs in which knowledge of the relative positions of celestial bodies and related details is held to be useful in understanding, interpreting, and organizing information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters. A practitioner of astrology is called an astrologer, or, less often, an astrologist.

Sourced

• [Mrs. O reads her horoscope.]
  Mrs. O: You have green, scaly skin, and a soft yellow underbelly with a series of fin-like ridges running down your spine and tail. Although lizardlike in shape, you can grow anything up to thirty feet in length with huge teeth that can bite off great rocks and trees. You inhabit arid, subtropical zones, and you wear spectacles.
  Mrs. Trepidatious: It's very good about the spectacles.
  Mrs. O: It's amazing!
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus, "Dennis Moore" [3.11], "What the Stars Foretell" sketch

• Amusingly, it falls foul of our modern taboo against lazy stereotyping. How would we react if a newspaper published a daily columm that read something like this: "Germans: It is in your nature to be hard-working and methodical, which should serve you well at work today. In your personal relationships, especially this evening, you will need to curb your natural tendency to obey orders. Chinese: Inscrutability has many advantages, but it may be your undoing today. British: Your stiff upper lip may serve you well in business dealings, but try to relax and let yourself go in your social life.
  • Richard Dawkins, The Enemies of Reason, "Slaves to Superstition" [1.01], 13 August 2007, timecode 0:05:54ff

• Their [the stars] influence on our fate is considerably less than the influence of a banana peel, on which you can slip and break your leg. But there is no interest in banana peels, whereas serious periodicals include horoscopes [...] It lifts his spirits. The whole universe revolves around him, and even if things aren't going well, even if the stars are lined up in such a way that the suspenders manufacturer loses his shirt and the individual consequently loses his job, it's still more comforting than to know that the stars don't really give a damn. Knock astrology out of his head, and the belief too that the cactus on his windowsill cares about him, and what is left? Barefoot, naked despair.
  • Stanislaw Lem, Peace on Earth (1987), tr. Elinor Ford (1994) from Pojój na Zemi, Ch. 5

• Astrology is a disease, not a science.
  • Moses ben Maimon, 1135 to 1204, Jewish philosopher

• There is no bar to knowledge greater than contempt prior to examination.
  • Herbert Spencer, 1820 to 1903, English philosopher (Quoted in Eysenck, H.J. and Nias, D.K.B., Astrology Science or Superstition; p.1. Penguin Books (1982) ISBN 0140223975.)

Unsourced

• I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarian and we're sceptical.
  • Attributed to Arthur C. Clarke

In Popular Culture

• Humorous conversation : The Big Bang Theory

Penny: I'm a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know.
Sheldon: Yes... it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun's apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.
Penny: Participate in the what?