There are some questions in Astronomy to which we are attracted … on account of their peculiarity … [rather] than from any direct advantage which their solution would afford to mankind… I am not aware that any practical use has been made of Saturn’s Rings… But when we contemplate the Rings from a purely scientific point of view, they become the most remarkable bodies in the heavens… When we have actually seen that great arch swing over the equator of the planet without any visible connection, we cannot bring our minds to rest.

As the new century begins … we may be ready to settle down before we wreck the planet. It is time to sort out Earth and calculate what it will take to provide a satisfying and sustainable life for everyone into the indefinite future… For every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption would require [the resources of] four more planet Earths.

For the same reason I have resolved not to put anything around Saturn except what I have already observed and revealed — that is, two small stars which touch it, one to the east and one to the west, in which no alteration has ever yet been seen to take place and in which none is to be expected in the future, barring some very strange event remote from every other motion known to or even imagined by us. But as to the supposition … that Saturn is sometimes oblong and sometimes accompanied by two stars on its flanks, Your Excellency may rest assured that this results either from the imperfection of the telescope or the eye of the observer… I, who have observed it a thousand times at different periods with an excellent instrument, can assure you that no change whatever is to be seen in it.