“Don’t depend too much on anyone in this world. Because even your shadow leaves you when you’re in darkness.” — Ibn Taymiyyah, an Islamic scholar (alim), theologian and logician born in Harran, located in what is now Turkey, close to the Syrian border. He lived during the troubled times of the Mongol invasions. He was considered by his followers to be a member of the school founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and sought the return of Islam to what he viewed as earlier interpretations of the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

“Don’t depend too much on anyone in this world. Because even your shadow leaves you when you’re in darkness.”

— Ibn Taymiyyah, an Islamic scholar (alim), theologian and logician born in Harran, located in what is now Turkey, close to the Syrian border. He lived during the troubled times of the Mongol invasions. He was considered by his followers to be a member of the school founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal and sought the return of Islam to what he viewed as earlier interpretations of the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

“People are like stained glass windows, they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss American psychiatrist, a pioneer in Near-death studies and the author of the groundbreaking book On Death and Dying (1969), where she first discussed what is now known as the Kübler-Ross model.

“People are like stained glass windows, they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”

— Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss American psychiatrist, a pioneer in Near-death studies and the author of the groundbreaking book On Death and Dying (1969), where she first discussed what is now known as the Kübler-Ross model.

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” — Sarah Williams, an English poet, most famous as the author of “The Old Astronomer”, also known as “The Old Astronomer to His Pupil”.

“Though my soul may set in darkness,
it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly
to be fearful of the night.”

— Sarah Williams, an English poet, most famous as the author of “The Old Astronomer”, also known as “The Old Astronomer to His Pupil”.

“As children, we fear the dark. Anything might be out. here. The unknown troubles us. Ironically, it is our fate to live in the dark. This unexpected finding of science is only about three centuries old. Head out from the Earth in any direction you choose, and—after an initial flash of blue and a longer wait while the Sun fades—you are surrounded by blackness, punctuated only here and there by the faint and distant stars. Even after we are grown, the darkness retains its power to frighten us. And so there are those who say we should not inquire too closely into who else might be living in that darkness. Better not to know, they say. There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Of this immense multitude, could it be that our humdrum Sun is the only one with an inhabited planet? Maybe. Maybe the origin of life or intelligence is exceedingly improbable. Or maybe civilizations arise all the time, but wipe themselves out as soon as they are able. Or, here and there, peppered across space, orbiting other suns, maybe there are worlds something like our own, on which other beings gaze up and wonder as we do about who else lives in the dark…Life is a comparative rarity. You can survey dozens of worlds and find that on only one of them does life arise and evolve and persist… If we humans ever go to these worlds, then, it will be because a nation or a consortium of them believes it to be to its advantage—or to the advantage of the human species… In our time we’ve crossed the Solar System and sent four ships to the stars… But we continue to search for inhabitants. We can’t help it. Life looks for life.”— Carl Sagan in his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in the space and natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated skeptical inquiry and the scientific method. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). (Watch the ingenious video from “The Sagan Series” here)

“As children, we fear the dark. Anything might be out. here. The unknown troubles us. Ironically, it is our fate to live in the dark. This unexpected finding of science is only about three centuries old. Head out from the Earth in any direction you choose, and—after an initial flash of blue and a longer wait while the Sun fades—you are surrounded by blackness, punctuated only here and there by the faint and distant stars. Even after we are grown, the darkness retains its power to frighten us. And so there are those who say we should not inquire too closely into who else might be living in that darkness. Better not to know, they say. There are 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Of this immense multitude, could it be that our humdrum Sun is the only one with an inhabited planet? Maybe. Maybe the origin of life or intelligence is exceedingly improbable. Or maybe civilizations arise all the time, but wipe themselves out as soon as they are able. Or, here and there, peppered across space, orbiting other suns, maybe there are worlds something like our own, on which other beings gaze up and wonder as we do about who else lives in the dark…Life is a comparative rarity. You can survey dozens of worlds and find that on only one of them does life arise and evolve and persist… If we humans ever go to these worlds, then, it will be because a nation or a consortium of them believes it to be to its advantage—or to the advantage of the human species… In our time we’ve crossed the Solar System and sent four ships to the stars… But we continue to search for inhabitants. We can’t help it. Life looks for life.”

— Carl Sagan in his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in the space and natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated skeptical inquiry and the scientific method. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

(Watch the ingenious video from “The Sagan Series” here)



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