Astronomy
From Wikiquote
Astronomy is the science of celestial objects such as stars, planets, comets and galaxies.
Contents |
Sourced [edit]
- Space is big. Really big. You won't believe how hugely mindboggling big it really is.
- For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.
- It does at first appear that an astronomer rapt in abstraction, while he gazes on a star, must feel more exquisite delight than a farmer who is conducting his team.
- Isaac D'Israeli, Literary Character of Men of Genius, On Habituating Ourselves to an Individual Pursuit; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 46.
- Although Uranus and Neptune are superficially twin planets, they are different enough to remind us - as do Venus and Earth - that we still have a lot to learn about the mix of natural laws and historical accidents that formed the planets and fashioned their destinies.
- Timothy Ferris - Seeing in the Dark, 2002.
- The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it.
- Anatole France - The Garden of Epicurus, 1894.
- Over the rim of waiting earth the moon lifted with majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of moorings...
- Kenneth Grahame - The Wind in the Willows, 1908.
- A strange weasel-built creature with a curly tail.
- Johannes Hevelius on his newly described constellation Lacerta the lizard in 1687 - reported in SkyNews The Canadian Magazine of Astronomy and Stargazing September/October 2002.
- It's unique because it doesn't look like a comet with the typical tail; it looks like a cloud. It's not what you would normally see at all ... With the naked eye, it looks like a star or planet, but with binoculars it's really weird looking; it doesn't happen every day.
- George Masterson, physics and astronomy teacher on Comet 17P/Holmes - quoted in "Mysteriously bright comet provides sky-high teaching moment at NHS" in the Daily News of Newburyport (9 November 2007)
- And God made two great lights, great for their use
To man, the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night, altern.- John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VII, line 346.
- At night astronomers agree.
- Matthew Prior, Phillis's Age, Stanza 3; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 46.
- My lord, they say five moons were seen tonight:
Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about
The other four in wondrous motion.- William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act IV, scene 2, line 182.
- These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights
That give a name to every fixed star
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk, and wot not what they are.- William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act I, scene 1, line 88.
- And teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night.- William Shakespeare, The Tempest (c. 1610-1612), Act I, scene 2, line 334.
- There's some ill planet reigns;
I must be patient till the heavens look
With an aspect more favorable.- William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale (c. 1610-11), Act II, scene 1, line 105.
- O how loud
It calls devotion! genuine growth of night!
Devotion! daughter of Astronomy!
An undevout Astronomer is mad.- Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IX, line 774.
- I open the scuttle at night and see the far sprinkled systems,
And all I see multiplied as high as I can cyper edge but rim of the farthest systems.Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding,
Outward and outward, forever outward.- Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass, 1855
Unsourced [edit]
- Stars scribble in our eyes the frosty sagas, the gleaming cantos of unvanquished space.
- Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle citadels there!
- Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me nots of the angels
- The unquiet republic of the maze of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free wilderness.
- Architects should be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens.
- Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter.
