Mapping Quotes

The map is not the territory... The only usefulness of a map depends on similarity of structure between the empirical world and the map.

...to look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?

The map is not the territory.

From earliest times, humans - explorers and thinkers - have wanted to figure out the shape of their world. Forever, the way we've done that is through storytelling. It is difficult to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

In Einstein's general relativity the structure of space can change but not its topology. Topology is the property of something that doesn't change when you bend it or stretch it as long as you don't break anything.

I like to run in a new place to help me find my way around.

Most of the southern hemisphere is unexplored. We had more exploration ships down there during Captain Cook's time than now. It's amazing.

One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map that is the territory. You must remember this.

Canada's a huge country, so to be able to unite the country through communication satellite technology or to be able to observe it through remote sensing technology from space is a natural fit for a country like Canada.

Drones, with their agility and small size, seem perfect for search and rescue operations.

What drives me is exploration with a purpose, more the classic Royal Geographical Society genre.

When the terrain differs from the map, you have to go with the terrain.

Captain Cook discovered Australia looking for the Terra Incognita. Christopher Columbus thought he was finding India but discovered America. History is full of events that happened because of an imaginary tale.

Google has been an amazing benefit for our business. People understand the whole world of mapping and want to do more than not get lost. They want to do spatial analytics. It's been fantastic for us.

Writing has nothing to do with meaning. It has to do with landsurveying and cartography, including the mapping of countries yet to come.

Nature is the chart of God, mapping out all His attributes.

Let's start at 35 because I don't know where it is.

There is no terra incognito left.

Some persons were to be sent in search of the river Missouri in order to discover whether it had any communication with the Pacific Ocean …

My first occupation was to map the country.

GIS is waking up the world to the power of geography, this science of integration, and has the framework for creating a better future.

I would stare at maps of Delaware for hours.

You just pull back for hundreds of miles using the satellite imagery, and all of a sudden this invisible world become visible. You're actually able to see settlements and tombs - and even things like buried pyramids - that you might not otherwise be able to see.

Human nature is to need a map. If you’re brave enough to draw one, people will follow.

GIS is the only technology that actually integrates many different subjects using geography as its common framework.