Universe

It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

The universe confounds me! I cannot imagine that such a ‘clock’ can exist without there being a Clockmaker.
Voltaire

The universe is often used as a blanket term for quite literally everything that exists. In strictly physical terms, the total universe is the sum of all matter that exists and the space in which all events occur or could occur.

Quotes

• [L]'universe […] est une machine à faire des dieux.
  • Translation: The universe is a machine for making gods.
  • Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002, p. 317.

• It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is.
  • Jorge Luis Borges, in "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" in Other Inquisitions (1952), as translated by Will Fitzgerald

• We can suspect that there is no universe in the organic, unifying sense, that this ambitious term has. If there is a universe, its aim is not conjectured yet; we have not yet conjectured the words, the definitions, the etymologies, the synonyms, from the secret dictionary of God.
  • Jorge Luis Borges, in "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" in Other Inquisitions (1952), as translated by Lilia Graciela Vázquez

• What blessedness it is to dwell amidst this transparent air, which the eye can pierce without limit, amidst these floods of pure, soft, cheering light, under this immeasurable arch of heaven, and in sight of these countless stars! An infinite universe is each moment opened to our view. And this universe is the sign and symbol of Infinite Power, Intelligence, Purity, Bliss, and Love.
  • William Ellery Channing, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 610.

• Even atheistic scientists will wax lyrical about the scale, the majesty, the harmony, the elegance, the sheer ingenuity of the universe.
  • Paul Davies, Awake! magazine, February 2009

• The overall organization of the universe has suggested to many a modern astronomer an element of design.
  • Paul Davies, Awake! magazine, February 2010

• In the universe ‘there is no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pointless indifference.’
  • Richard Dawkins, Watchtower Online Library

• The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.
  • Freeman Dyson, Watchtower Online Library

• Science and religion are two windows that people look through trying to understand the big universe outside.
  • Freeman Dyson, Watchtower Online Library

• I went to our Theological College lately, Westcott House, and we had a sort of chat. He told me that without him it was impossible to understand the universe, and I came away having forgotten to reply that it did not occur to me to try to understand the universe. I must not run on like this so. Or rather what I mean is I have just finished the biography of my great aunt. Undersanding, or partially understanding, her has been quite a large enough job.
  • E. M. Forster, Selected Letters: Letter 411, to Lionel Trilling, 1 August 1955

• Science could predict that the universe must have had a beginning.
  • Stephen Hawking, prominent physicist concluded in his book Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, published in 1993.

• All things are connected with all things throughout the universe, from the insect to the archangel; from the sand-grain to the mountain and the globe; from the dew-drop to the ocean; from the rain-drop to the rainbow; from the pebble on the shore to 'the sun that blazes in the firmament; from the zephyr that sings among the flowers of the field to the ocean that pours its wild bass in the great anthem of nature. Not only are all things connected with all things, but there is a concatenation of events, so that the character and effects of no one event can terminate in itself. As each event owes some portion of its nature to that which preceded it, so it imparts some of its nature to that which succeeds it, and thus perpetuates the blended good or evil of itself and its predecessors. The single event may thus live on in its influence along the line of all the ages, assuming new shapes, or if clothing itself in the drapery of new events, ever marching onward and upward in the continually growing affairs of time.
  • John Lanahan, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 611.

• The universe is God’s son.
  • Dejan Stojanovic, in The Sun Watches the Sun (1999) “God’s Son” (Sequence: “Is It Possible to Write a Poem”)

• The universe confounds me! I cannot imagine that such a ‘clock’ can exist without there being a Clockmaker.
  • Voltaire, 18th-century French philosopher. Quoted in The Book of Nature and the Bible, The Watchtower, published by Jehovah's Witnesses, March 1, 1988.

Unsourced

• Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.
  • J. B. S. Haldane

• I do not pretend to understand the universe. It's a great deal bigger than I am.
  • Tom Stoppard

• In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
  • Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

• There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another which states that this has already happened.
  • Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

• Not only do we not understand the universe, if someone explained it to us, we wouldn't know what he was talking about.
  • Isaac Asimov

• There seems to be no end to the senseless wickedness done on this little planet in a minor solar system, and we puny mortals appear to be decreasing in importance so far as the universe is concerned.
  • Alec Guinness

• The universe is infinite in all directions, not only above us in the large but also below us in the small. If we start from our human scale of existence and explore the content of the universe further and further, we finally arrive, both in the large and the small, at misty distances where first our senses and then even our concepts fail us.
  • Emil Wiechert, as quoted by Freeman Dyson in "Infinite In All Directions"

• The universe hates you, deal with it.
  • Seamus Harper of Andromeda

• What shall I say ?
  The universe has seen many wonders,
  none greater then the ignorance of it's inhabitants.
  • Perry Rhodan 2433

• The inexhaustible resource of universal spirit is equal to every demand.
  There is no reality in lack.
  Abundance is here and now manifest.
  • Anon.