"Astronomy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I'm not going to talk astronomy, but about my old ship, the first I ever sailed in, after having a kind of training in my father's little yachts, beginning with the shoulder-of-mutton sail; and next with the Cornish lugger, which he bought at Newlyn, on ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... vested in the hands of the Corporation of London and the Mercers' Company. These public bodies were jointly to nominate seven professors, who should lecture successively, one on every day of the week, on the seven sciences of Divinity, Astronomy, Music, Geometry, Law, Medicine, and Rhetoric. The salaries of the lecturers were defrayed by the profits arising from the Royal Exchange, and were very liberal. The wisdom of my patron is shown by the sciences he directed should be taught. ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... perplexed as to the points of the compass. He knew pretty well what hour it was, so that the sun showed him the general bearings of the country, and he knew that when night came he could correct his course by the pole star. Dick's knowledge of astronomy was limited; he knew only one star by name, but that one was an inestimable treasure of knowledge. His perplexity was owing to his uncertainty as to the direction in which his companions and their pursuers had gone, for he had made ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... were not placed there by our Divine Creator without a purpose. I believe they have an influence upon us that can be learned, defined and utilized by those who study and know this influence through astronomy and astrology. Nu-nah what is that which produces the interior longings to know? Is it not that there is something to know—something that our common brains can not grasp and analyze? Do you not ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner
... On Giotto's "astronomy, figured by an old man" on the same tower. "Above which are seen, by the astronomy of his heart, the heavenly ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Africa or Asia, in the lower valley of the Nile or in the plains of Chaldea, the pyramids of Egypt were unquestionably destined to very opposite purposes. According, to Herodotus, they were introduced by the Hyksos; and Proclus, the Platonic philosopher, connects them with the science of astronomy—a science which, he adds, the Egyptians derived from the Chaldeans. Hence we may reasonably infer that they served as well for temples for planetary worship as for observatories. Subsequently to the descent of the shepherds, their hallowed precincts were ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... sermon astronomy preaches as to the substantial power of invisible things. If the visible universe is so stupendous, what shall we think of the unseen force and vitality in whose arms all its splendors rest? It is no gigantic Atlas, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... Gabirol, and Moses ibn Ezra. The philosophic-critical scepticism of Abraham ibn Ezra co-existed in peace and harmony with the philosophic-poetic enthusiasm of Jehuda Halevi. The study of medicine, mathematics, physics, and astronomy went hand in hand with the study of the Talmud, which, though it may not have occupied the first place with the Spanish Jews of this time, by no means disappeared, as witness the compendium by Alphassi. Unusual breadth and fulness of the spiritual ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... perfected inventions. When the temper of the times permitted, these men, with various others of like tastes, drew together, held weekly meetings at Gresham College in Bishopsgate Street, discoursed on abstruse subjects, and heard erudite lectures, from Dr. Petty on chemistry, from Dr. Wren on astronomy, from Mr. Laurence Rooke on geometry; so that the Society of Antiquaries may be said to have been founded in the last years of ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... the veranda. These, with flags by day, make a festive appearance. The teachers find that city children who spend the five months in the open air are well equipped with elementary ideas in physical geography and astronomy. Their mental equipment is better, indeed, in all fields of thought, their physical health is improved, as well as their ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... But behind this lies a question, not so easily settled, as to the origin of the extensive deposits of limestone found at the very beginning of life upon earth. This problem brings us to the threshold of astronomy; for the base of limestone is metallic in character, susceptible therefore of fusion, and may have formed a part of the materials of our earth, even in an incandescent state, when the worlds were forming. But though this investigation ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... knowledge is to the thing known; and as doctrine, to the truths it inculcates. In these relations, grammar is a science. It is the first of what have been called the seven sciences, or liberal branches of knowledge; namely, grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Secondly, It is as skill, to the thing to be done; and as power, to the instruments it employs. In these relations, grammar is an art; and as such, has long been defined, "ars recte scribendi, recteque loquendi" the art of writing and speaking correctly. Thirdly, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... should most admire in these ancient monuments, is, the true and standing evidence they give of the skill of the Egyptians in astronomy; that is, in a science which seems incapable of being brought to perfection, but by a long series of years, and a great number of observations. M. de Chazelles, when he measured the great pyramid in question, found that the four sides of it ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... sense-experience, and consequently to disavow metaphysics as practically equivalent to the unreal. Thus, for Comte, sociology, of which he may truthfully be described as the founder, is as much a science as chemistry or astronomy. It deals with its subject-matter, man, in precisely the same way as the astronomer with the stars. And the same is also ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... stayed in Halifax Harbour, Cook employed his spare time in improving his knowledge of all subjects that were likely to be of service to him in his profession. He read Euclid for the first time, and entered upon a study of higher mathematics, especially devoting himself to astronomy. King in his sketch of Cook's life, says, on the authority of the man himself, that these studies were carried on "without any other assistance than what a few books and his ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... and they withheld all provisions, in hopes either of starving the admiral and his people, or of driving them from the island. In this extremity, a fortunate idea presented itself to Columbus. From his knowledge of astronomy, he ascertained that, within three days, there would be a total eclipse of the moon in the early part of the night. He sent, therefore, an Indian of Hispaniola, who served as his interpreter, to summon the principal caciques to a grand conference, appointing for it the ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... by Theology, continues Newman, is none of these things: "I simply mean the SCIENCE OF GOD, or the truths we know about God, put into a system, just as we have a science of the stars and call it astronomy, or of the crust of the ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... on herbs and plants is met with prior to the sixteenth century. In 1552 all books on [8] astronomy and geography were ordered to be destroyed, because supposed to be infected with magic. And it is more than probable that any publications extant at that time on the virtues of herbs (then associated by many persons with witchcraft), underwent the same fate. In like manner King Hezekiah long ago ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... monks to whom the superintendence of the establishment was confided had understood the organisation of his mind, if they had engaged more able mathematical professors, or if we had had any incitement to the study of chemistry, natural philosophy, astronomy, etc., I am convinced that Bonaparte would have pursued these sciences with all the genius and spirit of investigation which he displayed in a career, more brilliant it is true, but less useful to mankind. Unfortunately, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... some modern philosophers are as little acquainted as Nicodemus with the humbling doctrines of the gospel. The society of learned men, making perpetual advance in natural science, especially in astronomy,—would seem to be the highest conception of happiness which too many modern philosophers can reach. They know not some of the elementary teachings of the Holy Scriptures; such as,—"Without holiness ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... in this life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men. I see few strangers, and have but a small household. My days I devote to reading and to experiments in chemistry, and I spend many of the clear nights in the study of astronomy. There is—though I do not know how there is or why there is—a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... entrance into the magic realms. On Commencement night we whispered merrily among ourselves on the stage to see our favorite planet, Venus, of course, smiling at us through a high, open window, "bidding adieu to her astronomy class," we said. ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life, without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostaticks or astronomy; but his moral and prudential character ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Dynasties, books of the time of Mena and perhaps of kings anterior to Mena. The works in the library would be composed of religious works; chapters of the Book of the Dead, copied after authentic texts preserved in the Temples; scientific treatises on geometry, medicine and astronomy; historic books in which were preserved the sayings and doings of the ancient kings, together with the number of the years of their lives and the exact duration of their reigns; manuals of philosophy and practical morals and ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... every direction, and Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica, and the lesser islands suffered from their assaults. They were trained to fight from childhood, and attained to great proficiency in arms. Being active voyagers, they had some knowledge of astronomy. When operating in the waters of a hostile country it was their custom to mask their boats with palm leaves, for in this guise they stole upon the enemy the easier. Like the red men of our plains, they painted their faces, and, indeed, they retained many of the practices common to our ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... sitteth still and resteth, but the earth and trees do move and run themselves. Thus it goeth; we give ourselves up to our own foolish fancies and conceits. This fool (Copernicus) will turn the whole art of astronomy upside down; but the Scripture showeth and teacheth another lesson, when Joshua commandeth the sun to stand still, and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... Myths, Fire Myths and Wind Myths, until, as one of the most sane and vigorous thinkers of the present day[2] has justly observed: "If you take the rhyme of Mary and her little lamb, and call Mary the sun and the lamb the moon, you will achieve astonishing results, both in religion and astronomy, when you find that the lamb followed Mary to ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... course of lectures to my native drivers upon the wonders of modern science. It would amuse me and at the same time instruct them—or at least I hoped it would, and I proceeded at once to put the plan into execution. I turned my attention first to astronomy. Camping out on the open steppe, with no roof above except the starry sky, I had every facility for the illustration of my subject, and night after night as we travelled northward I might have been seen in ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... to emphasise the importance of the reforms introduced into astronomy by Kepler, it will be well to sketch briefly the history of the theories which he had to overthrow. In very early times it must have been realised that the sun and moon were continually changing their ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... part in community life, including leadership in the local Ku Klux Klan. Meantime, he read widely to improve his education—as a boy he had attended a country school for only a few months—and by middle-age had become "better educated than many college graduates." Well versed in history, astronomy, and literature, he turned to writing as an avocation, producing numerous stories which were published in the Herald and News and several magazines. One of his stories, A Dance with Death, considered by his contemporaries "one of the most thrilling ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... other of your classes, in Chemistry, in Astronomy, in Natural History, besides acquiring groups of facts, the student has a glimpse of the method by which they were discovered, of the type of inference to which the discovery conforms, so that the discovery of a new comet, the detection of a new species, the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley
... when an attempt is made to define humanly this theory of science, of knowledge, whose end is in itself, of knowing for the sake of knowing, of attaining truth for the sake of truth. Science exists only in personal consciousness and thanks to it; astronomy, mathematics, have no other reality than that which they possess as knowledge in the minds of those who study and cultivate them. And if some day all personal consciousness must come to an end on the earth; if some day the human spirit must return ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... race had somewhere lived through an experience which would produce in them the exactitude in balance and measurement of facts that has distinguished the Arabs and the Jews. The Babylonians founded astronomy and chronology; they recorded the movements of the stars, and divided their year according to the sun and moon. They built a vast and intricate network of canals to fertilize their land; and they arranged the earliest system ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... founded, two of the main forces of the intellectual world of our time had scarcely come into play,—modern literature and modern science. Science knew nothing as yet of chemistry, nothing of electricity, of geology, scarce anything of botany. In astronomy, the Copernican system was just struggling into notice, and far from being universally received. Lord Bacon, I think, was the latest author of note in the library bequeathed by John Harvard; and Lord Bacon rejected the Copernican system. English literature had had its great Elizabethan ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... and not as much as he would wish to learn of the condition of the English houses during the same period, but he has been painfully convinced that the peripatetic orators are about as qualified to lecture upon the subject as he is to lecture on astronomy. ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... it was willing to listen to reason. Maui set forth his terms of peace, which the sun accepted, agreeing to go more slowly thereafter. Wherefore Hina had ample time in which to dry her kapas, and the days are longer than they used to be, which last is quite in accord with the teachings of modern astronomy." ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... deductions or corollaries from inductive propositions of a simpler and more universal character. Thus mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, acoustics, thermology, have successively been rendered mathematical; and astronomy was brought by Newton within the laws of general mechanics. Why it is that the substitution of this circuitous mode of proceeding for a process apparently much easier and more natural, is held, and justly, to be the greatest triumph of the investigation ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... all scientific subjects, and explained from a scientific point of view everything that was discussed. But he explained it all in his own way. He had a theory of his own about the circulation of the blood, about chemistry, about astronomy. He talked ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... basis of such evidence I have suggested elsewhere[9] that the clock is "nought but a fallen angel from the world of astronomy." The first great clocks of medieval Europe were designed as astronomical showpieces, full of complicated gearing and dials to show the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets, to exhibit eclipses, and to carry through the involved computations of the ecclesiastical calendar. As such they were comparable ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... Horton's recitation room that morning." And again, "His prompt and vigorous method of introducing a fresh subject to college notice was the making it a required study for the senior class of the year. '79 grappled with biology, '80 had a senior diet of geology and astronomy." To these young women, as to his juries in earlier days, he could use words "that burned and cut like the lash of a scourge," and it is evident that they feared "the somber lightnings of ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... routine of the schools, and longed for some nutriment more succulent and savoury. For fifteen years he lived as a Franciscan monk in the cell and cloisters of the monastery at Fontenay-le-Comte. In books, but not those of a monastic library, he found salvation; mathematics, astronomy, law, Latin, Greek consoled him during his period of uncongenial seclusion. His criminal companions—books which might be suspected of heresy—were sequestrated. The young Bishop of Maillezais—his friend Geoffroy d'Estissac, who had aided his studies—and the great scholar Bude came to his ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... come a little nearer, we will teach them that charming air from the last opera. Does a new star come out in heaven, or an old one disappear? The one will be an added glory, and the other not much missed; but they will little concern our astronomy. Expect no more rhapsodies, my friend, unless it be upon the wonderful ease with which every thing can be done without them. That we find all things pleasant, is the extent of our poetry. It is pleasant to wake; it is pleasant to sleep; it is pleasant to wake and sleep again; pleasant to watch ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... regions; accentuating a fictitious and harmonious anger; drying his forehead without disarranging his hair; suffocating with the emotions he evoked; displaying real tears, and with them a knowledge, not only of law, rhetoric, philosophy, but of geometry, astronomy, ethics and the fine arts; blinding his hearers with the coruscations of his erudition; stirring them with his tongue, as with the point of a sword, until, as though abruptly possessed by an access of fury, he seized the plaintiff by the beard and sent him spinning like a leaf which ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... one were to say, with an air of ineffable scorn, that petty experiments on terrestrial gravitation and radiant heat, such as can be made with commonplace pendulums and tea-kettles, have nothing whatever to do with the grand and noble subject of Physical Astronomy! Science would not have got very far on that plan, I fancy. The truth is, that science, while it is perpetually dealing with questions of magnitude, and knows very well what is large and what is small, knows nothing whatever of any such distinction as that ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... He is from Cortland, State of New York, and has been a Saint for a good many years. It is said he enacts the character of the Devil, with a pea-green tail, in the Mormon initiation ceremonies. He also published an almanac, in which he blends astronomy with short moral essays, and suggestions in regard to the proper management of hens. He also contributes a poem, entitled "The Tombs," to his almanac for the current year, from which ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the tops of the trees, as he sent a marble across the table. As for the stars, they were cut out with a large pair of scissors, and stuck into the sky with the end of the thumb. Having thus settled his system of astronomy, he looked very happy, and patted ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... modern philosophy and astronomy. The Laputians' great improvements in the latter. The king's ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... chronology,[16] the "Book of the Ciphers," unfortunately lost, which treated doubtless of the Hindu art of calculating, and was the author of numerous other works. Al-B[i]r[u]n[i] was a man of unusual attainments, being versed in Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Hebrew, and Syriac, as well as in astronomy, chronology, and mathematics. In his work on India he gives detailed information concerning the language and {7} customs of the people of that country, and states explicitly[17] that the Hindus of his time did not ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... instinct with a delicious invitation, and I bent down to and over her, filled with the delight of the moment. We made one chair do for both of us, and looked through the window at intervals to escape each other's eyes, and laughed at nothing, and talked a very extraordinary astronomy. At last, with her soft fingers in my hair and on my throat, and her white arm above the elbow clasped in my hand, speech, even laughter, grew choked in dense feelings for all the command I kept upon myself; and we sat in silence, hearing each other's ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... waxed killing in beauty, her father brought her a learned Divine with whom she began reading and who taught her the Koran and writing and the art of caligraphy;[FN503] and when she had seen the first decade, she fell to studying astrology and astronomy and the aspect of the Heavens. Such was her case; but as regards that of her sire the Merchant, from the hour he forgathered with the Darwaysh he ceased not to hold him in his heart and presently he proposed to take him and travel ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... human mind were freely and fully exercised in this reign. Considerable progress was made in mathematics and astronomy by divers individuals; among whom we number Sanderson, Bradley, Maclaurin, Smith, and the two Simpsons. Natural philosophy became a general study; and the new doctrine of electricity grew into fashion. Different methods were discovered ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... family estates had been restored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new life being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in Barden Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for his own use. There he hunted and studied astronomy and astrology with the ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... word, study theology, dialogue Metron measure barometer, diameter *Micros small microscope, microbe Monos one, alone monoplane, monotone *Morphe form metamorphosis, amorphous *Neos new, young neolithic, neophyte *Neuron nerve neuralgia, neurotic Nomos law, science, astronomy, gastronomy, economy management *Onoma name anonymous, patronymic *Opsis view, sight synopsis, thanatopsis, optician *Orthos right orthopedic, orthodox *Osteon bone osteopathy, periosteum *Pais, paidos child paideutics, pedagogue, encyclopedia Pas, pan all ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... was observed to crane his neck and look up toward the heavens anxiously. The others did not need to be told what those signs indicated. They knew very well that the fat chum had not become suddenly interested in astronomy, or expected an eclipse of the sun to happen. He was merely noting how far along his morning journey the sky king had traveled, because he could not forget how Rob had set a time limit on ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... Britain, to appreciate the fact that a vast multitude of the human race are slaughtered by incompetent cookery. Though a young woman may have taken lessons in music, and may have taken lessons in painting, and lessons in astronomy, she is not well educated unless she has ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... were so bad. When bloodhounds were pursuing a woman through the tangled swamps of the South—she hungry for liberty—Webster took the side of the bloodhounds. Such a man is no authority for me. Bacon denied the Copernican system of astronomy; he is an unsafe guide. Wesley believed in witches; I cannot follow him. No man should quote a name instead of an argument; no man should bring forward a person instead of a principle, unless he is willing to accept all the ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... vast central sun. Although it may not have occurred to you, a little reflection will show that the inhabitants of all the central planets, such as Osnome, must perforce be absolutely ignorant of astronomy, and of all the wonders of outer space. Before your coming we knew nothing beyond our own solar system, and very little of that. We knew of the existence of only such of the closest planets as were brilliant enough to be seen in our continuous sunlight, and they ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... remarkable record of the continual adjustment of religious belief to secular rationality. The offices of religion have availed no more to justify cruelty, intolerance, and bigotry than to establish the Ptolemaic astronomy or the Scriptural account of creation. This is more readily admitted in the case of natural science than in the case of ethics, but only because teachers of religion have commonly had a more expert acquaintance with moral matters than with the orbits of the planets or the natural ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... of Mauritania, was said to support the heavens on his shoulders, of which burden Hercules relieved him for a time, when he partook of his hospitality. It has been suggested that the meaning of this story is, that Hercules learned the study of astronomy from Atlas.] ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... planets, perplexed and intricate as they must have appeared in the infancy of astronomy, are now calculated and known with ease ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... stage was pretty general, led by the individual aforesaid, who lectured and preached, rather than conversed. Few subjects were untouched by his eloquence; he spoke with equal ease on a difficult point in theology, and on the conformation of the sun. He lectured on politics, astronomy, chemistry, and anatomy with great fluency and equal incorrectness. In describing the circulation of the blood, he said, "It's a purely metaphysical subject;" and the answering remark, "It is the most purely physical," made him vehemently angry. He spoke of the ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... and order fitted to his nature, higher than some, lower than others, but right, and the only right for him, his true position in the cosmic scheme, his ultimate relation to the Power whence it proceeds. Life, like astronomy, has become Copernican. It has no centre, no significance, or, if any, one beyond our ken. Gravitation drives us, not love. We are attracted and repelled by a force we cannot control, a force that resides in our muscles and our nerves, not in our will and spirit. ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... wonderful piece of word painting, is a portion of an address on the "Uses of Astronomy," delivered at the inauguration of the Dudley Observatory, at Albany, N, Y, Note the careful use of words, and the strong figures in the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... astronomers in twelve signs, and every sign is devised in thirty degrees; that is, 360 degrees that the firmament hath above. Also, be the earth devised in as many parts as the firmament, and let every part answer to a degree of the firmament. And wit it well, that, after the authors of astronomy, 700 furlongs of earth answer to a degree of the firmament, and those be eighty-seven miles and four furlongs. Now be that here multiplied by 360 sithes, and then they be 31,500 miles every of eight furlongs, after miles of our country. So much hath the earth in roundness and of height environ, ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... an uncompromising hostility to prejudice and selfishness, and a fearless admission of truth wherever it was discovered. Such must be the conduct of the Educationist, if he expects to succeed in an equal degree. The history of astronomy as taught by astrologers, and of chemistry in the hands of the alchymist, should teach both the lovers and the fearers of change an important lesson. These pretended sciences being mere conjectures, were of use to nobody; and yet the boldness with ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... the sensitive soul, anxiously pondering, asks, Are students of astronomy prone to infidelity, and does this last question mean to convey the faintest shadow of a doubt? If not, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... thought to have been the first who, by assiduous observation, discovered the course of the Sun, Moon, and other luminaries. By them he regulated the time for the seasons, and imparted this knowledge to others. Being thus, as it were, the father of astronomy, he has been feigned by the poets to have been the father of the Sun ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Astronomy finds in your eyes Better light than she studies above, And Music must borrow your sighs As the melody ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... "His [Dr. Ross's] theory was advanced and argued against in a former age." By this, I understand him to express his belief that my theory has been rejected heretofore. Well. It may, nevertheless, be the true theory. The Copernican astronomy was argued against in a former age and rejected; yet it has prevailed. Newton's law of gravitation was argued against and rejected by a whole generation of philosophers on the continent of Europe; yet it has ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... reasons, I think it could not justly be considered as either a misemployment or profanation of the Sabbath-day. For the elder children, moreover, it would be advisable to have occasional class lectures, simplified for the purpose, on astronomy, natural history, &c.; and although it might be unadvisable to occupy the hours of the Sabbath-day with the delivery of them, they might be given, on some week-day evening, and should be made the medium of reward to good behaviour; such children as had misbehaved themselves being proscribed ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... of Gonthier d'Andernach. What Bacon was to philosophy, Dante and Petrarch to poetry, Michael Angelo and Raphael to painting, Columbus and Gama to geography, Copernicus and Galileo to astronomy, Gonthier was in France to the art of cookery. Before him, their code of eating was formed only of loose scraps picked up here and there; the names of dishes were strange and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... are in activity, we are domesticated, and awkwardness and discomfort give place to natural and agreeable movements. It is noticed that the consideration of the great periods and spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind and an indifference to death. The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains, appeases our irritations and elevates our friendships. Even a high dome, and the expansive interior of a cathedral, have a sensible effect on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... returned to Paris. The celebrated Pingre was chief librarian of the Ste. GENEVIEVE COLLECTION; and St. Leger attached himself with ardour and affection to the society and instructions of his Principal. He became joint SECOND LIBRARIAN in 1759; when Pingre, eminent for astronomy, departing for India to observe the transit of Venus over the sun's disk, St. Leger was appointed to succeed him as CHIEF—and kept the place till the year 1772. These twelve years were always considered by St. Leger as the happiest and most profitable of his life. During ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Fashions are all that these women think of! There—look away! I presume they have changed considerably since you looked before! When do you wish to begin your lessons in Astronomy? ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... a very polite people—much politer than the Chinese, but very proud. They are a learned nation, for they can read and write, and they understand geography, arithmetic, and astronomy. There is a college where many languages are taught, even English. The dress of the gentlemen is elegant;—the loose tunic and trowsers, the sash, and jacket, are made of a kind of fine linen, adorned ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... by knowing ancient Greece, I understand knowing her as the giver of Greek art, and the guide to a free and right use of reason and to scientific method, and the founder of our mathematics and physics and astronomy and biology,—I understand knowing her as all this, and not merely knowing certain Greek poems, and histories, and treatises, and speeches,—so as to the knowledge of modern nations also. By knowing modern nations, I mean not merely knowing their belles lettres, but knowing ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... he has got as far as suggesting she is a duck or a daisy, or hinting shyly that she is his bee or his honeysuckle: in his excitement he is not quite sure which. In the novel she has been reading the hero has likened the heroine to half the vegetable kingdom. Elementary astronomy has been exhausted in his attempt to describe to her the impression her appearance leaves on him. Bond Street has been sacked in his endeavour to get it clearly home to her what different parts of her are like—her eyes, ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... been doing any astronomy lately," replied Tom; and feeling that he could not chat about their private life, he refrained from saying anything about the work upon which they had been engaged, but contented himself with showing the workshop, and then leading ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... were versed in every art and science. Moreover, they appear to have been accomplished needlewomen; for a Breton chronicler, giving an account of the coronation of an early king (Erech) at Nantes, describes his mantle as embroidered by these priestesses with figures of Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. Their skill in divination caused them to be associated with the fairies; and Morgan—i.e. "born of the sea"—one of these priestesses, who lived in the first century of the Christian era, was famous among ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... "an example of those bold metaphors and poetical forms of expression with which the Scriptures abound." Scott (edit. 1850) states that "it would have been improper that he (Joshua) should speak, or that the miracle should be recorded according to the terms of modern astronomy." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... Sciences.—Sociology has relations to an outer circle of general sciences and to an inner circle of social sciences. It is itself but one of the social sciences, though it is regarded as chief among them. Man looks out upon the universe, of which he is but an atom, and asks questions. Astronomy brings to him the findings of its telescopes and spectrum analyses. Geology explains the transformations that have taken place in the earth on which he lives. Physics and chemistry analyze its substance and reveal the laws ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... 'Geschichte der Juden', vi. 198. He was poor, but studied hard, composed poems wherewith to 'Adorn my own, my Hebrew nation', married, had a son Isaac (a poet too), travelled to Africa, the Holy Land, Rome in 1140, Persia, India, Italy, France, England. He wrote many treatises on Hebrew Grammar, astronomy, mathematics, &c., commentaries on the books of the Bible, &c.—many of them in Rome—and two pamphlets in England 'for a certain Salomon of London'. Joseph of Maudeville was one of his English pupils. He died in 1167, at the age of 75, either in Kalahorra, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... assumest the form of the constellation called the Great Bear, and moving onward in space causest the lapse of Time. This constellation, in Hindu astronomy, is known by the name of Sisumara because of its resemblance with the form of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... special questions was pursued further, it became advisable to hand over the treatment of first one and then another group of closely interconnected questions to students who would pursue them independently of research into ultimate presuppositions. This is how Geometry, Astronomy, Biology came, in ancient times, to be successively detached from general Philosophy. The separation of Psychology—the detailed study of the processes of mental life—from Philosophy hardly goes back beyond the days of our fathers, and the separation of such studies as 'sociology' from ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... of early astronomy and the school-divines. Come down a little later, Archbishop Usher, a very learned Protestant prelate, tells us that the world was created on Sunday, the twenty-third of October, four thousand and four years before the birth of Christ. Deluge, December 7th, two thousand three hundred and forty-eight ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... care and attention such books as he could get. Mr. George Ellicott, a gentlemen of fortune and considerable literary taste, and who resided near to Benjamin, became interested in him, and lent him books from his large library. Among these books were three on Astronomy. A few old and imperfect astronomical instruments also found their way into the boy's hands, all of which he used with great benefit ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... all the abstruse sciences, and limiting his philosophy to those practical points which could have influence on human conduct. "He himself was always conversing about the affairs of men," is the description given of him by Xenophon. Astronomy he pronounced to be one of the divine mysteries which it was impossible to understand and madness to investigate; all that man wanted was to know enough of the heavenly bodies to serve as an index to the change of seasons ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... we possess has come to us by way of a long path. There is no instantaneous liberty or wisdom or language or beauty or religion. Old philosophies, old agriculture, old domestic arts, old sciences, medicine, chemistry, astronomy, old modes of travel and commerce, old forms of government and religion have all come in gracefully or ungracefully and have said: 'Progress is king, and long live the king!' Year after year the mind perceives education to expand, ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... have there occurred of a nature so completely unexpected—so entirely novel—so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions—as to leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason and astronomy together by ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... frame I would walk on till near midnight in the beautiful neighbourhood which surrounds Goettingen. The glittering starry sky harmonised well with my thoughts, and a new object which appeared in the heavens at this time, aroused my wonder in an especial degree. I knew but little of astronomy, and the expected arrival of a large comet[74] was, therefore, quite unknown to me; so that I found out the comet for myself, and that was a source of special attraction. This object absorbed my contemplation in those silent ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... totality and endures for a brief interval of seconds (or it might be a minute) after the Sun has reappeared. It was long a matter of discussion whether the Corona belonged to the Sun or the Moon. In the early days of telescopic astronomy there was something to be said perhaps on both sides, but it is now a matter of absolute certainty that it belongs to the Sun, and that the Moon contributes nothing to the spectacle of a total eclipse of the Sun, except its own solid body, which blocks ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... conception presented no serious difficulty. The cosmical theories upon which the conception was founded were essentially the same among Jews and Gentiles, and indeed were but little modified until the establishment of the Copernican astronomy. The doctrine of the Messiah's second coming was also received without opposition, and for about a century men lived in continual anticipation of that event, until hope long deferred produced its usual results; the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... people as could find room there. They built many new dikes and dams and a vast reservoir in the desert which they filled with water from the Nile to be kept and used in case of a prolonged drought. They encouraged people to devote themselves to the study of mathematics and astronomy so that they might determine the time when the floods of the Nile were to be expected. Since for this purpose it was necessary to have a handy method by which time could be measured, they established the year of 365 days, which they divided into ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... saying what I did read. But a queer variety of natural history, some of it quite indigestible by my undeveloped mind; many books of travels, mainly of a scientific character, among them voyages of discovery in the South Seas, by which my brain was dimly filled with splendour; some geography and astronomy, both of them sincerely enjoyed; much theology, which I desired to appreciate but could never get my teeth into (if I may venture to say so), and over which my eye and tongue learned to slip without penetrating, so that ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... new earth. It was a new discovery of God, and a new estimate of man. They suddenly caught {xl} a vision of life as it was capable of becoming, and they committed their fortunes to the task of making that possible world real. By a shift of view, as revolutionary as that from Ptolemaic astronomy to the verifiable insight of Copernicus, they passed over from the dogma of a Christ who came to appease an angry God, and to found a Church as an ark of safety in a doomed world, to the living apprehension of a Christ—verifiable in experience—who revealed to them, in terms of His ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... the leading spirit in a girls' society for mental improvement, she did not know that the intellectual gifts there developed would enable her to strike the keenest blow that slavery ever received in this country. When Maria Mitchell studied astronomy with her father she could not tell that a professorship at Vassar College awaited her, and that her thorough fitness for it would prove a tower of strength to the cause of higher education for women throughout the country. Keep the sword bright, ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... was then called, in which he gives an historical and critical view of the poetical Consistory of Barcelona, is the first approximation, however faint, to an Art of Poetry in the Castilian tongue. [19] The exclusiveness with which he devoted himself to science, and especially astronomy, to the utter neglect of his temporal concerns, led the wits of that day to remark, that "he knew much of heaven, and nothing of earth." He paid the usual penalty of such indifference to worldly weal, by seeing himself eventually stripped of his lordly possessions, and reduced, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... for working purposes in the language of Ptolemy; and there would be reactionists who would invite us to return to the safe convictions of our forefathers. What the world has seen the world may see again; and were it once granted that astronomy were something to be ruled by authority, new Popes would imprison new Galileos; the knowledge already acquired would be strangled in the cords which were intended to keep it safe from harm, and deprived of the free air on which its life depends it ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Trusts Are National School Teachers A Woman to Be Pitied When Will Woman's Mental Life Begin? The Cow That Kicks Her Weaned Calf Is All Heart Respectable Women Who Listen to "Faust" Why Women Should Vote Astronomy- Woman's Future Work Woman's Vanity Is Useful To Editorial Writers—Adopt Ruskin's Main Idea Imagination Without Dreaming the Secret of Material Success The One Who Needs No Statue The Vast Importance of Sleep Woman Sustains, Guides and Controls the World The Story of the Complaining ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... them, in the seventeenth century, in France, was Richard Simon. He attempted to gloss over the declarations of Scripture against lending at interest, in an elaborate treatise, but was immediately confronted by Bossuet. Just as Bossuet had mingled Scripture with astronomy and opposed the Copernican theory, so now he mingled Scripture with political economy and denounced the lending of money at interest. He called attention to the fact that the Scriptures, the councils ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Palliser, who now commanded the Shrewsbury, in taking soundings in the Saint Lawrence opposite Quebec. While thus occupied he had a narrow escape of being captured by the French. After this he had many opportunities of displaying his talents, while he applied himself diligently to the study of astronomy and other branches of nautical science. While serving on board the Northumberland, he was engaged in the capture of Newfoundland, and was afterwards employed, at different periods, in surveying its coast. At the end of 1762, returning to England, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Bible Genesis or the disputes heretofore indulged in respecting the Hagiographa, or "sacred writings" of the Jews, it will hardly be denied by the Biblical scholar that some of the most important discoveries in modern science, especially in the direction of astronomy, as well as in geological research and inquiry, confirm rather than throw doubt upon their more explicit utterances. This has been so marked a feature in the controversy, that whenever scientific speculation has thrown down any fresh gage of battle, as against the validity of these ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... wrong on the Mississippi—just as easy, or easier, than elsewhere in the world. The student of astronomy, gazing into the vast spaces of the skies, feels his own insignificance increasing, while the magnitude of the constellations grows upon him. What can it matter what such a trifling thing, such a mere atom, as himself ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... debts such as what of arithmetic, what of astronomy, what of geography, we owe to the Saracen, from Palestine we derive the faith of Europe shared (in the language of the Bidding Prayer) by all Christian people dispersed throughout the world; as to Greece ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Education is to begin at or rather before birth; to be continued for a time by mothers and nurses under the supervision of the state; finally, to comprehend music and gymnastics. Under music is included reading, writing, playing on the lyre, arithmetic, geometry, and a knowledge of astronomy sufficient to preserve the minds of the citizens from impiety in after-life. Gymnastics are to be practised chiefly with a view to their use in war. The discussion of education, which was lightly touched upon in Book ...
— Laws • Plato
... infinity. What has become of that brazen seat of the old gods, that paradise to which an ascending Deity might be caught up through clouds, and hidden for a moment from the eyes of his disciples? The demonstration of the simplest truths of astronomy destroyed at a blow the legends that were most significant to the early Christians by annihilating their symbolism. Well might the Church persecute Galileo for his proof of the world's mobility. Instinctively she perceived that in this ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... father, Daksha modified an imprecation which he could not recall, and pronounced that the decay should be periodical only, not permanent, and that it should alternate with periods of recovery. Hence the successive wane and increase of the Moon. Padma, Purana, Swarga-Khanda, Sec. II. Rohini in Astronomy is the fourth lunar mansion, containing five stars, the principal of which is Aldebaran." WILSON, Specimens of the Hindu ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the fact that a position at sea was found by observing the heavenly bodies, Code had become interested in astronomy, and had learned to chart them on a sky ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... to strangers what is true, without being accused of exaggeration. A shopkeeper in that remote little town, he not only intermeddled fearlessly with all knowledge, but mastered more than many practised and University men do in their own lines. Mathematics, astronomy, and especially what may be called selenology, or the doctrine of the moon, and the higher geometry and physics; Hebrew, Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin, to the veriest rigors of prosody and metre; Spanish and Italian, German, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... seldom is the man in the pulpit able to make people feel that the things he is talking about are things at all! Neither when the heavens are black with clouds and rain, nor when the sun rises glorious in a blue perfection, do many care to sit down and be taught astronomy! But Hester was a live gospel to them—and most when she sang. Even the name of the Saviour uttered in her singing tone and with the expression she then gave it, came nearer to them than when she spoke it. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... necessary in all the other sciences. The physicist or chemist is not now required to prove the ethical importance of his ions or atoms; the biologist is not expected to prove the utility of the plants or animals which he dissects. In pre-scientific ages this was not the case. Astronomy, for example, was studied because men believed in astrology: it was thought that the movements of the planets had the most direct and important bearing upon the lives of human beings. Presumably, when this ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... the early writers on astronomy and is supposed to be so named because in Egypt it was a sickly time of the year when the sun ...
— A Field Book of the Stars • William Tyler Olcott
... Arizona department of astronomy, said he was certain that the object was not a meteor or other natural phenomenon. . . . Switchboards Swamped Switchboards at the Pima county sheriff's office and Tucson police station were jammed with inquiries. Hundreds saw the object. Tom Bailey, 1411 E. 10th Street, thought it was a large airplane ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... almost as much so as the impulse to propagation; and those pious rogues, the clergy, preach against what Nature forces us to practise (or she could not carry on her system), and not twice in a century say a syllable against the Lust of Destruction! Oh! one is lost in moralising, as one is in astronomy! In the ordinance and preservation of the great universal system one sees the Divine Artificer, but our intellects are too bounded ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... explain here what will appear more clearly on a later page—I mean, that the Erewhonians, according to their new system, do not believe the sun to be a god except as regards this world and his other planets. My father had told them a little about astronomy, and had assured them that all the fixed stars were suns like our own, with planets revolving round them, which were probably tenanted by intelligent living beings, however unlike they might be to ourselves. From this they evolved the theory that the sun was the ruler of this planetary system, ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... constantly in the fields or in the factories, cheering, encouraging, or advising the people. "He knew every thing—how to do it, what was the best way." "Ah, he was a man; he told us what to do, and how to be good." In his spare moments he studied botany, geology, astronomy, mechanics. "He was never idle, not even a quarter of an hour." He believed much in work; thought hard field-work a good cure for spiritual as well as bodily diseases. He was an "extraordinarily eloquent preacher;" ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... in the most thorough manner by the German Oriental Society, of which the Kaiser is patron. Babylon rose to its greatest glory under Nebuchadnezzar, the most famous monarch of the Babylonian Empire. At that period it was the great centre of arts, learning and science, astronomy and astrology being patronized by the Babylonian kings. The city finally came to a terrible end under Belshazzar, as related in the Bible. The palace of the impious king has been uncovered and its great piles of masonry laid bare. The great ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... wife and family again we know nothing except that he had at least one son, named Lewis. We know this because he wrote a book, called A Treatise on the Astrolabe, for this little son. An astrolabe was an instrument used in astronomy to find out the distance of stars from the earth, the position of the sun and moon, the length of days, and many other things about the heavens and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... and sun and stars, and of society and solitude, no preparation had been made, or dreamt of. The sentiment of nature had never been encouraged in him, or even mentioned. He knew not how to look at a landscape nor at a sky. Of plants and trees he was as exquisitely ignorant as of astronomy. It had not occurred to him to wonder why the days are longer in summer, and he vaguely supposed that the cold of winter was due to an increased distance of the earth from the sun. Still, he had learnt that Saturn had a ring, and sometimes he unconsciously looked for it in ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... independent spadework has been done that the "complete form" we are groping after will be laid bare. Up to the present it may be thought that little of really practical value has been proved, and to some this may suggest that the work is therefore superfluous. But, do we study astronomy for mere practical reasons? Does the seeker in this field of science imagine that he is going to derive practical results for us, in the immediate future, from his study of the heavens? It is for purely ideal reasons—and in order to give seeking humanity ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... fitter task for younger brothers, or poor men's sons, to be pen and inkhorn men, pedantical slaves, and no whit beseeming the calling of a gentleman, as Frenchmen and Germans commonly do, neglect therefore all human learning, what have they to do with it? Let mariners learn astronomy; merchants, factors study arithmetic; surveyors get them geometry; spectacle-makers optics; land-leapers geography; town-clerks rhetoric, what should he do with a spade, that hath no ground to dig; or they with learning, that have no use of it? thus ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... his own tastes and volition. The harmony of music of God's laws, which embrace Astronomy, Physics and of Life, together with a knowledge of the laws of Electricity, is especially brought to the attention of the individual. You of the Earth know as yet very little concerning the true nature of Electricity. Your methods of handling and generating ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... Hoang-Ho, or Yellow River, having entered the country of their adoption from the north-west; and they planted themselves in the present province of Shan-se. Although nomads, they had some knowledge of astronomy, brought from their earlier homes; and they quickly made for themselves settled abodes. The native tribes by degrees were extirpated or driven out. The new-comers cultivated grain. They raised flax, out of ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... always did admire telegraphy; but astronomy was what I had took up just then.' That capitalist sure knew how to gesticulate ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... himself, saturating himself with all that is best in the poetry of Ancient Greece and Rome, of modern Italy, of Germany and of his own country, studying theology, metaphysics, natural history, geology, astronomy and travels, observing nature with the eye of a poet, a painter and a naturalist. Nor was he a recluse. He threw himself heartily into the life of his time, following with the keenest interest all the great political and social movements, the progress and effects ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... Of their voyages to Cornwall for tin there is no question, and it is more than probable they sailed to the Baltic for amber. It has been even supposed that they anticipated Columbus in the discovery of America. Niebuhr connects the primitive astronomy of Europe with that of America, and, therefore, must suppose the latter country to have been discovered.—Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 281. This, however, is very vague ground of conjecture; the tide of knowledge, as well as emigration, was ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... dull in style they would be very amusing, just on account of the extraordinary ingenuity the writers display in avoiding the natural and obvious explanation of the facts they discuss. They even go into astronomy." ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... lover's mood of planning. Out of his wealth what a home he would provide for her, and how he would gratify her gentle whims! Even her astronomical fancy, Vassar-born, should become his own, and there should be an observatory to the house. He had a weakness for astronomy himself, and was glad his wife-to-be had the same taste intensified. They would study the heavens together from a heaven of their own. What was wealth good for anyhow, save to make ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... development. The secular knowledge taught in the ordinary schools was that represented by the division of the Seven Arts into the elementary Trivium of Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, followed by the Quadrivium of Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy. The scope of the Trivium was much wider than the terms denote. Thus Grammar included the study of the classical Latin authors, which never entirely ceased; Rhetoric comprised the practice of composition in prose ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... the seven liberal arts and sciences enumerated in the Fellow Craft's degree—Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... improvements—their own town or city, like Boston, the "hub of the universe." In fact, we are about the center; our pets more knowing, and our children smarter, than can be found elsewhere. But as the study of astronomy gives ability to look upon the vast universe of thousands of worlds much larger than our own, revolving in their orbits, it develops our intellectual faculties, and enables us to view the concave appearance of the ethereal blue from a standpoint widely ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... was erewhile an Emperor of Byzance, which as now is called Constantinople; but anciently it was called Byzance. There was in the said city an Emperor; pagan he was, and was held for wise as of his law. He knew well enough of a science that is called Astronomy, and he knew withal of the course of the stars, and the planets, and the moon: and he saw well in the stars many marvels, and he knew much of other things wherein the paynims much study, and in the lots they trow, and the answers of the Evil One, that is to say, the Enemy. This Emperor ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... knows nothing of ancient or modern history (outside of China), geography, astronomy, zoology or physics. He knows perfectly well the dynastic history of his own country and he composes beautiful poems, and these are ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... madam, for I take this to be a kind of flattery to me, or to be so intended. Miss C. talks much of you, and L. N., and Miss A. Can you imagine what are Miss C.'s occupations and arrangements? Never; so I'll tell you. Why, she instructs two nieces and a nephew (things of twelve or thirteen) in astronomy, natural philosophy, and principles of botany! Her boudoir has globes, several mathematical instruments, &c. All this I discovered by accident; for she denies it all most strenuously, and with some pretty, unaffected embarrassment. Be assured this is an amiable, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... museum at Alexandria a number of very learned men, who lived within its walls and were provided with salaries, the whole system closely resembling a university. Grammar, prosody, mythology, astronomy and philosophy were studied, and great attention was given to the study of medicine. Euclid was the teacher of Mathematics, and Hipparchus of Alexandria was the father of Astronomy. The teaching of medicine ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire, in the year 1795. He was educated at the burgh school of Annan, and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh. Classics and the higher mathematics were his favourite studies; and he was more especially fond of astronomy. He was a teacher for some years after leaving the University. For a few years after this he was engaged in minor literary work; and translating from the German occupied a good deal of his time. In 1826 ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... these things (not foretold by any one but yourself) have come to pass after so surprising a manner; it is with no small concern I see the original of the Staffian race so little known in the world as it is at this time; for which reason, as you have employed your studies in astronomy and the occult sciences, so I, my mother being a Welsh woman, dedicated mine to genealogy, particularly that of our own family, which, for its antiquity and number, may challenge any in Great Britain. The Staffs are originally of Staffordshire, which took its name from them: the first that ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... try to tell you a very little about the sun, I should like to know whether you have ever learnt any astronomy. My children thought it a hard name, but its meaning is beautiful, for it is only the Greek way of saying, "the law of the stars." Astronomy is the science which teaches us about the heavenly bodies, as the sun, moon, and stars are sometimes called; and all that we can learn ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... Wilkinson, a former pupil of Miss Miner, of Washington, D. C., states that Miss Miner held classes in astronomy with the larger girls who were required to meet at the school in the evenings to study their lessons from nature. Mrs. Amelia E. Wormley, the mother of the writer, residing in Washington, also a pupil of Miss Miner, recalls vividly the emphasis which Miss Miner placed upon the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... The consequence is, that those appointed to examine publications condemn and proscribe all works necessary for the diffusion of knowledge among the Spaniards. The books that have been published on mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy and several other branches of science connected with those, are not treated with more favor." [Liorente, vol. 4, p. 420.] "The Inquisition is, perhaps, the most active cause of that intellectual death that visited ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... science, we shall find no reason for supposing that the advances of modern times were anticipated by the mysterious wisdom of the Egyptians. Something they must have known of astronomy to practise astrology, to divide the ecliptic, and to effect the exact orientation of the Pyramids. Some knowledge of chemistry is implied in their manufacture of porcelain; some knowledge of physiology, pathology, pharmaceutics and surgery, in their ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... times and seasons we have lost in our neglect to kill male hogs "in the wane of the moon!" For there is a lingering of astrology in all this kitchen lore. The irascible Culpeper, Digby's contemporary, poured scorn on such doctors as knew not the high science, "Physick without astronomy being like ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various
... the Admiralty, informing them that a bark of three hundred and seventy tons had been taken up for that purpose. This vessel was called the Endeavour, and the command of her given to Lieutenant James Cook,[3] a gentleman of undoubted abilities in astronomy and navigation, who was soon after, by the Royal Society, appointed, with Mr Charles Green, a gentleman who had long been assistant to Dr Bradley at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, to observe ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Father Petau, and launched into the gloom of chronology, but was disgusted at the critical part, which I found had neither bottom nor banks; this made me prefer the more exact measurement of time by the course of the celestial bodies. I should even have contracted a fondness for astronomy, had I been in possession of instruments, but was obliged to content myself with some of the elements of that art, learned from books, and a few rude observations made with a telescope, sufficient only to give me a general idea of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... this trade, during which he contrived to carry on his education in mathematics and navigation, he entered the Royal Navy, and by diligence and honesty rose to the rank of master. He had completed so many excellent surveys in North America, and, besides, had made himself so well acquainted with astronomy, that the Government had no hesitation in making their choice. That it was a wise one, the care and success of Cook fully showed. He carried the expedition safely to Tahiti, built fortifications, and erected instruments for the observations, which were admirably made. ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... thee as thou dost it, Let me arrest thy thoughts; wonder with me Why ploughing, building, ruling, and the rest, Or most of those arts whence our lives are blest, By cursed Cain's race invented be, And blest Seth vexed us with astronomy. There's nothing simply good nor ill alone; Of every quality Comparison The only ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... perpetual seclusion," said the prisoner; "and that which makes me believe so, above all, now, is the care that was taken to render me as accomplished a cavalier as possible. The gentleman attached to my person taught me everything he knew himself—mathematics, a little geometry, astronomy, fencing and riding. Every morning I went through military exercises, and practiced on horseback. Well, one morning during the summer, it being very hot, I went to sleep in the hall. Nothing, up to that period, except ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... be enough to disenchant any young gentleman fresh from his compendiums of philosophy. Persons, he would think, in so hopeless a state of ignorance could no more discuss metaphysics to any purpose than men who had never heard of the teaching of Newton or Darwin could discuss astronomy or biology. It was, in fact, one result of the very varying stages of education of these eminent gentlemen that the discussions became very ambiguous. Some of the commonest of technical terms convey such different meanings in different periods ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Of astronomy they had a fair working knowledge—that is a very old science; and with it, a surprising range and facility ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... this, and told his father that he would study diligently. He was sent to the University of Pavia, where he learned all the geography that was then known, as well as how to draw maps and charts. He became a skillful penman, and also studied astronomy, geometry, and Latin. ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... evidence to the contrary, we may take it for granted that in these schools the syllabus was much the same as in the other schools of the country. In most the Latin language was taught, and in some dialectics, rhetoric, physics, astronomy and geometry. The education was largely practical. At most of the Bohemian schools in those days the children were taught, by means of conversation books, how to look after a horse, how to reckon with a landlord, how to ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... graphic at all, it is an inevitable theory. It was first suggested by the wearing out and dissolution of all material objects, and by the specks of dust floating in a sunbeam; and it is confirmed, on an enlarged scale, by the stellar universe as conceived by modern astronomy. When today we talk of nuclei and electrons, if we imagine them at all, we imagine them as atoms. But it is all a picture, prophesying what we might see through a sufficiently powerful microscope; the important philosophical ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... doctrine of chances, the most 'dreamy moonshine,' as the purely practical mind would consider, of all human pursuits; if 'idle star-gazers' had not watched long and carefully the motions of the heavenly bodies—our modern astronomy would have been impossible, and without our astronomy 'our ships, our colonies, our seamen,' all which makes modern life modern life could not have existed. Ages of sedentary, quiet, thinking people were required before that ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... precepts and ceremonies of their religion. Physic and philosophy are cultivated among the Indians, and the Chinese have some skill in medicine; but that almost entirely consists in the art of applying hot irons or cauteries. They have some smattering of astronomy; but in this likewise the Indians surpass the Chinese. I know not that even so much as one man of either nation has embraced Mahomedism, or has learned to speak the Arabic language. The Indians have few horses, and there are more in China; but the Chinese have no elephants, and cannot endure to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... assigned the presidence over some particular department of literature, art, or science. Calliope was the muse of epic poetry, Clio of history, Euterpe of lyric poetry, Melpomene of tragedy, Terpsichore of choral dance and song, Erato of love poetry, Polyhymnia of sacred poetry, Urania of astronomy, Thalia ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Useful Knowledge; these he studied and "puzzled over" for several years. "Having no friends of my own age," he wrote, "I occupied myself with various pursuits in which I had begun to take an interest. Having learnt the use of the sextant in surveying, and my brother having a book on Nautical Astronomy, I practised a few of the simpler observations. Among these were determining the meridian by equal altitudes of the sun, and also by the pole-star at its upper or lower culmination; finding the latitude by the meridian altitude of the sun, or of some of the principal stars; and making a rude sundial ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... considered worth while to search out a described conjunction 2500 years before Christ, in order to test the credibility of Chinese records, it would surely be not less interesting to confirm the accuracy of Chaucer's astronomy, of his fondness for which, and of his desire to bring it forward on all possible occasions, he has given so many proofs ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... promoted to Priscian. Then follow the other subjects of the Trivium and the Quadrivium each subject being represented by its chief exponent—logic by Aristotle, arithmetic by Boethius, geometry by Euclid, etc. Ptolemy, the philosopher, who represents astronomy, is confused with the kings of the same name. Pliny and Seneca represent the more advanced study of physical and of moral science respectively, and the edifice is crowned by Theology, the long and arduous course for which followed that of the Arts. ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... the form in which we possess them, are of uncertain but probably much later date, they afford us, in conjunction with the vast body of earlier religious and philosophic literature, and with a certain amount of scientific literature dealing with astronomy and astrology, with mathematics and specially with geometry, and with grammar and prosody, sufficient materials for appraising, with a fair measure of accuracy, the stage of progress which the Aryan Hindus had reached in the sixth century B.C. When the world was ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... of a Boer column marching through the heart of a country supposed to be effectively in the possession of the British Army was again witnessed. To borrow another metaphor, this time from Astronomy, De Wet throughout the greater part of his career was a telescopic star, invisible to the naked eye. General Officers and column commanders helplessly watched his course through the telescopes of the Intelligence ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... surprised to find that Banneker had already discovered for himself the key to the use of both and was "already absorbed in the contemplation of the new world which was thus opened to his view."[163] They had literally made him fix his gaze on the stars, for the study of astronomy thus ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various |
