"The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago, had they happened to be within reach of predatory human hands"
About this Quote
As a psychologist writing in an age intoxicated with progress and empire, Ellis is needling the Victorian faith that more power equals more enlightenment. His "predatory human hands" frames acquisitiveness as instinctual, even animal, undermining the comforting story that civilization refines desire. The metaphor also anticipates the logic of extraction: if something can be taken, it will be taken; if it can be priced, it will be priced. He’s not describing a few bad actors but a recurring human pattern - the conversion of wonder into property.
The line lands today because it reads like a prequel to our era’s greatest hits: strip-mined mountains, monetized attention, data harvested from private life. Ellis’s real target isn’t astronomy; it’s entitlement. The cosmos functions as a mirror, reflecting how quickly reverence collapses into possession when the object of awe is close enough to grab.
Quote Details
| Topic | Nature |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: The Dance of Life (Havelock Ellis, 1923)
Evidence: He failed to note that the sun and the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago, as even their infinitely more numerous analogues on the earth beneath are likely to disappear, had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands. (Page 352 (near end; in the 'The art of morals' section)). This wording is the primary-source text by Havelock Ellis in his book The Dance of Life (first published 1923). The commonly-circulated quotation is a shortened paraphrase (often omitting 'and' after 'sun' and removing the long em-dash clause about 'analogues on the earth beneath'). The passage appears on page 352 in the Project Gutenberg transcription derived from page images, matching the page number cited by secondary quotation references. Other candidates (1) 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts (Jacqueline Sweeney, 1995) compilation96.7% ... Havelock Ellis said : “ The sun , the moon , and the stars would have disappeared long ago , had they happened to... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ellis, Havelock. (2026, February 13). The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago, had they happened to be within reach of predatory human hands. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-sun-the-moon-and-the-stars-would-have-148534/
Chicago Style
Ellis, Havelock. "The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago, had they happened to be within reach of predatory human hands." FixQuotes. February 13, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-sun-the-moon-and-the-stars-would-have-148534/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago, had they happened to be within reach of predatory human hands." FixQuotes, 13 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-sun-the-moon-and-the-stars-would-have-148534/. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.
