“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.

Art matures. It is the formal elaboration of activity, complete in its own pattern. It is a cosmos of its own.

Rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person’s concept of his relation to the cosmos.

We are not created only to enjoy the world, we are created in order to evolve the cosmos.

All of my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and emotions have no validity or significance in the cosmos-at-large.

Deep down, there is in the substance of the cosmos a primordial disposition, sui generis, for self-arrangement and self-involution.

There is no justice in the world. You have to make your own, because believe me, the cosmos that gifted you the chaos, also created you with care.

When I talk to audiences about the size and age of the cosmos, people often say, “It makes me feel so insignificant.” I answer, “The bigger and more impersonal the universe is, the more meaningful you are, because this vast.

Contemplating the immensity of our cosmos can make you feel very small and insignificant. But think about it.