Gavin Pretor-Pinney > Quotes

“We pledge to fight 'blue-sky thinking wherever we find it. Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.”
― Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloudspotter's Guide

“The humble Cumulus humilis - never hurt a soul.”
― Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloudspotter's Guide

“It is easy to forget that you live in the sky - not beneath it, but within it. Our atmosphere is an enormous ocean, and you inhabit it. This ocean is made up of the gases of air rather than liquid water, but it is as much of an ocean as the Atlantic or the Pacific. You may think of yourself as living on the ground, but all that means is that you are a creature of the ocean bed. You still inhabit the atmosphere like a sea creature does the water.”
― Gavin Pretor-Pinney, A Cloud a Day

“Clouds are the most egalitarian of nature's displays, since each one of us has a good view of them, so it really doesn't matter where you are.”
― Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloudspotter's Guide

“How sad that we can now go up in aeroplanes and see that there are no gods upon the clouds.”
― Gavin Pretor-Pinney

“Don't be brainwashed by the sun fascists - fair-weather Cumulus have a starring role in the perfect summer's day.”
― Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloudspotter's Guide

“Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.”
― Gavin Pretor-Pinney

“Having your head in the clouds, even for just a few minutes each day, is good for your mind, good for your body, and good for your soul.”
― Gavin Pretor-Pinney, A Cloud a Day

“A cloudspotter should hold up three fingers with an extended arm. If the individual elements of the layer are wider than all three fingers, the cloud is probably of the lower Stratocumulus genus. If they are smaller than the width of one finger, then it is more likely to be a high layer of cloudlets, called a Cirrocumulus. It is most likely to be an Altocumulus layer when the size of the cloudlets is somewhere between the two – smaller than three fingers and larger than one.”
― Gavin Pretor-Pinney, The Cloudspotter's Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds