Ah, Mardina. Evidently you entirely lack imagination. You’ll go far in the Navy. - Stephen Baxter

He dug into the ground until he came up with a stone the size of his thumbnail. “—if the universe was the size of this rock, then each star would be the size of a quark.”

Buffon’s work created a great furore, of course. The theologians at the Sorbonne condemned him, and Buffon dutifully retracted. But he wasn’t sincere: ‘It is better to be humble than hanged.’

For what goal is there for intelligent creatures, but to gather and store all available information?