"Dim and wonderful is the vision I have conjured up in my mind of life spreading slowly from this little seed bed of the solar system throughout the inanimate vastness of sidereal space...."

H.G. Wells, in The War of the Worlds

"Is it not worthy of tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one...."

Alexander the Great

When asked why he wept on hearing there was an infinite number of worlds, from 'On the Tranquillity of the Mind', by Plutarch

When Laplace was asked by Napoleon, how God fitted into this system, he replied, 'Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis.' I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God didn't exist. It is just that He doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science. That must be the position of every scientist. A scientific law, is not a scientific law, if it only holds when some supernatural being, decides to let things run, and not intervene.

Stephen Hawkings, in "Does God play Dice?"

Dust to dust...
Ashes to ashes...
Its time for the Phoenix to burn again


and be reborn again from it's golden flames....