“To be the first to enter the cosmos, to engage, single-handed, in an unprecedented duel with nature-could one dream of anything more?”

When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don’t be afraid, I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!

Looking at the earth from afar you realize it is too small for conflict and just big enough for co-operation.

The Earth is blue, how wonderful. It is amazing.

The path of a cosmonaut is not an easy, triumphant march to glory. You have to get to know the meaning not just of joy but also of grief, before being allowed in the spacecraft cabin.

Circling the earth in the orbital spaceship I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world!! Let us safeguard and enhance this beauty-not destroy it

When I orbited the Earth in a spaceship, I saw for the first time how beautiful our planet is. Mankind, let us preserve and increase this beauty, and not destroy it!

I am watching the Earth. The visibility is good. I feel well and cheerful. The machine is functioning normally.

I saw for the first time the earth’s shape. I could easily see the shores of continents, islands, great rivers, folds of the terrain, large bodies of water. The horizon is dark blue, smoothly turning to black. The feelings which filled me I can express with one word-joy.

I see Earth! It is so beautiful.

If all those people are getting wet to welcome me, surely the least I can do is get wet too!

I could have gone on flying through space forever.

The cosmos deals in the currency of emotion. When we feel good, goodness flows.

In my stillness I am the eternal possibility. In my movement I am the cosmos.

That silent gap between your thoughts is your window to the cosmic mind.

Other times, you’re doing some piece of work and suddenly you get feedback that tells you that you have touched something that is very alive in the cosmos.

The cosmos doesn’t measure sweat and hours for reward. The cosmos deals in the currencies of joy and satisfaction.

Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.

Aliens might be surprised to learn that in a cosmos with limitless starlight, humans kill for energy sources buried in the sand.

What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind through the universe? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.