"Astrology" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who made the most correct and melodious Cherokee verses, who comprehended most accurately the effect of the Cherokee particles, would generally be a superior man to him who was destitute of these accomplishments. If astrology were taught at our Universities, the young man who cast nativities best would generally turn out a superior man. If alchymy were taught, the young man who showed most activity in the pursuit of the philosopher's stone would generally turn ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I love them. I'd like to talk to you about reincarnation and astronomy, of which I know something, and even astrology and the survival of the dead and lots of other things. But I have got to make my way in the world, and I've no time. You think me a heavy bore and an old fogey because I won't go to parties to which lots ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... down to us. From them we can gather some notion of the strange medley of fact and imagination which was composed to influence the Gentile world. Abraham is said to have instructed the Egyptians in astrology; Joseph devised a great system of agriculture; Moses was identified variously with the legendary Greek seer Musaeus and the god Hermes. A favorite device for rebutting the calumnies of detractors and attracting ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... It looked as if we were headed back to the Middle Ages when astrology and medicine went hand in hand. But since it was our only lead we had no other choice but to follow it regardless of the consequences. Here luck played somewhat of a part, for Hillyard happened to have a contact that proved invaluable to us. Several years ...
— Disturbing Sun • Robert Shirley Richardson
... lest he should fascinate even against his will. Hieronymus Fracastorius, in his treatise "On Sympathy and Antipathy," thus states the fact and the philosophy,—and who shall dare gainsay the conclusions of one so learned in science, medicine, and astrology as this distinguished man?—"We read," he says, "that there were certain families in Crete who fascinated by praising, and this is doubtless quite possible. For as there exists in the nature of some persons a poison ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... disease?' I said, 'Yes, but He does not say that He has told the doctors which it is; and meanwhile I say, hekmet Allah, (God will cure) which can't be called an infidel sentiment.' Then we got into alchemy, astrology, magic and the rest; and Yussuf vexed his friend by telling gravely stories palpably absurd. Abdurrachman intimated that he was laughing at El-Ilm el-Muslimeen (the science of the Muslims), but Yussuf said, 'What is the Ilm el-Muslimeen? God has revealed ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... responsible for this. Astrology was his passion, and the planetary conjunctions seemed then to be in favor of submission. The man was superstitious, with all his clear-sighted ability, and permitted himself to be governed by influences which have long since lost their force upon ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... said he, and his talk cut quickly short, Coming where learned Alpheus slumbered nigh; Who had the year before sought Charles's court, In medicine, magic, and astrology Well versed; but now in art found small-support, Or rather found that it was all a lie. He had foreseen, that he his long-drawn life Should finish in the bosom ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... valuable would appear to have been his geometrical science, could we with accuracy attribute to Thales many problems claimed also, and more probably, by Pythagoras and later reasoners. He is asserted to have measured the pyramids by their shadows. He cultivated astronomy and astrology; and Laertius declares him to have been the first Greek that foretold eclipses. The yet higher distinction has been claimed for Thales of having introduced among his countrymen the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the sixteenth century with the revival through Greek literature of Stoic, Neo-Platonic, and Neo-Pythagorean ideas. But the Greek stream of thought as it now reappeared was fused with streams of thought from many other sources—medieval mysticism, Persian astrology, Arabian philosophy, and the Jewish Cabala, which, in turn, was a fusing of many elements—and the mixture was honestly believed to be genuine, revived Christianity, and Christ, as the new Adam, is throughout the ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... that which marked a turning-point in the history of our poetry, was the book which came out, timidly and anonymously, in the end of 1579, or the beginning of 1580, under the borrowed title of the Shepherd's Calendar, a name familiar in those days as that of an early medley of astrology and homely receipts from time to time reprinted, which was the Moore's or Zadkiel's almanac of the time. It was not published ostensibly by Spenser himself, though it is inscribed to Philip Sidney in a copy of verses signed with Spenser's ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... all was finished, the most skilful artist might have found it puzzling to harmonize the whole. To meet this dilemma therefore, it seems that the leader said to his second—'Write me a heap of long speeches upon astrology and Welch genealogy; write me another heap on English politics: I have some people in my novel (Sir Morgan and Dulberry) upon whom I can hang them: I shall take care to leave hooks in plenty, do you leave eyes; and with these hooks and eyes we can fasten your speeches on my men, when both are ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... and other necessaries as nowe late were perteyning to the Duke of Gloucestre.' "[3] At King's College many charges were incurred for books a year later, in 1448 By 1452 this foundation had 174 or 175 books, on philosophy, theology, medicine, astrology, mathematics, canon law, grammar, and in classical literature.[4] The only volume now remaining of this collection once belonged to Duke Humfrey, and as the list contains a fair number of classical books—Aristotle, Liber policie Platonis, ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... prosecution of Lord Strafford and was most unconscientiously a persecutor of Lord Clarendon. With great parts, he always hurt himself and his friends; with romantic bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. He spoke for the Test Act, though a Roman Catholic; and addicted himself to astrology on the birthday of true philosophy." Besides his youthful correspondence with Sir K. Digby on the subject of religion already mentioned, he was the author of an Apologie (1643, Thomason Tracts, E. 34 (32)), justifying his support of the king's cause; of Elvira ... a comedy (1667), printed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... in the twilight of natural astrology, a belief arose that changes in the weather were occasioned by the moon. [343] That the notion lives on, and will not soon die, is clear to any one who is conversant with current literature and common folk-lore. Even intelligent, well-informed people lend ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... the blind faith which the otherwise intelligent and capable general placed in the science of astrology was well known to the world. Should he deny that he had accomplished any feats, the duke, believing implicitly the statement which his astrologer had made him, would suspect that he was not what he seemed; he therefore replied modestly, "I have done ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... fantastic gilding of the renaissance, which they naturalized in the Tuileries and at Fontainbleau, in common with the stiletto and acqua tofana of their poisoners, and the fatalism of their judicial astrology. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... took up the thread of progress where antiquity had dropped it. Science revived, and bade defiance to dogma. The garnering of knowledge began afresh; and true knowledge has this to distinguish it from pseudo-sciences like astrology, theology, and philately, that it is instinct with procreative vigour. Knowledge breeds knowledge with ever-increasing rapidity; and the result is that the past hundred years have seen additions to man's control over the powers ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... is their marriage-temple, and bids her forbear to kill it lest she thereby commit murder, suicide, and sacrilege all in one. Donne's figures are scholastic and smell of the lamp. He ransacked cosmography, astrology, alchemy, optics, the canon law, and the divinity of the schoolmen for ink-horn terms and similes. He was in verse what Browne was in prose. He loved to play with distinctions, hyperboles, paradoxes, the very casuistry and dialectics of ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... also incalculably useful in its application to the arts of life, and then considering how much ground of this kind was acquired in the ten centuries which preceded the Renaissance, that we are at all able to estimate the expansive force which was then generated. Science, rescued from the hand of astrology, geomancy, alchemy, began her real life with the Renaissance. Since then, as far as to the present moment she has never ceased to grow. Progressive and durable, Science may be called the first-born of the spirit of the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... Ormuzd, the source of all light and purity, but did not regard them as independent deities. The religious rites and ceremonies were regulated by the priests, who were called Magi. The learning of the Magi was connected with astrology and enchantment, in which they were so celebrated that their name was applied to all orders of magicians ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... furnished the plan and superintended the execution of it: they were Dr Michel Herr, Christian Herlin, professor of mathematics at the school of Strasburg, and Nicholas Prugner, who, after preaching the reformation at Mulhouse and at Benfeld, occupied himself at Strasburg with mechanics and astrology. These three learned men began this work, but did not terminate it; it was resumed in the year 1570 by a pupil of Herlin, named Conrad Dasypodius of Strasburg, where he was a professor of mathematics. Dasypodius drew the design of ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... that I am futile, that he is futile, and that we are all three as futile as the devil. What am I? I have smattered law, smattered letters, smattered geography, smattered mathematics; I have even a working knowledge of judicial astrology; and here I stand, all London roaring by at the street's end, as impotent as any baby. I have a prodigious contempt for my maternal uncle; but without him, it is idle to deny it, I should simply resolve into my elements like an unstable mixture. I begin to perceive ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the predictions of haruspices, who pretend to read, in the entrails of victims, the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and there are many who do not presume either to bathe, or to dine, or to appear in public, till they have diligently consulted, according to the rules of astrology, the situation of Mercury, and the aspect of the moon. [49] It is singular enough, that this vain credulity may often be discovered among the profane sceptics, who impiously doubt, or deny, the existence ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... material. Mathematics, not being a phenomenal study, suited better the Neoplatonic mood and continued to advance, carrying astronomy with it for a while—astronomy that affected the life of man and that soon became the handmaid of astrology; medicine, too, that determined the conditions of man's life was also cherished, though often mistakenly, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the answer of her companion, and the carriage still drove on to the well-known residence of the young Baron of Ballochgray—a man who, knowing the weakness of his King, James the Third of Scotland, in his love of astrology and divination, and their sister black arts, had, with much address, endeavoured to recommend himself to his sovereign, by a character pre-established in his own castle, for a successful cultivation of the occult ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... the ordinary "Sons of the Covenant" were mere heathens. He was a man of prodigious distorted mental activity. He had read omnivorously amid the vast stores of Hebrew literature, was a great authority on Cabalah, understood astronomy, and, still more, astrology, was strong on finance, and could argue coherently on any subject outside religion. His letters to the press on specifically Jewish subjects were the most hopeless, involved, incomprehensible and protracted puzzles ever penned, bristling with Hebrew quotations from the most varying, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... baptism of the pious Olga marks an era in Russian Christianity, the beginning of the "Judaizing heresy," which centuries of persecution only strengthened. In 1425, Zacharias of Kiev, who is reputed to have "studied astrology, necromancy, and various other magic arts," converted the priest Dionis, the Archbishop Aleksey, and, through the latter, many more clergymen of Novgorod, Moscow, and Pskov. Aleksey became a devout Jew. He called himself Abraham and ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... instincts, so foolishly styled "superstition," runs in the blood of the populace, and tinges no less the intellects of better educated folk. More than one French statesman has been known to consult the fortune-teller's cards. For sceptical minds, astrology, in French, so oddly termed astrologie judiciare, is nothing more than a cunning device for making a profit out of one of the strongest of all the instincts of human nature—to wit, curiosity. The sceptical mind consequently denies ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... time, astronomy and astrology were one. Mathematics was useful, not for purposes of civil engineering, but principally in figuring out where a certain soul, born under a given planet, would be at a certain ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... into the most obscure corners of the metropolis; and again changing his name and dress, gave himself out as a German doctor named Bendo, who professed to find out inscrutable secrets, and to apply infallible remedies; to know, by astrology, all the past, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... Astrology, after all, may have been something more than a brilliant heathenism. No wonder that Amos of the text, having heard these two anthems of the stars, put down the stout rough staff of the herdsman and took into his brown hand and cut and knotted fingers the pen of a prophet, ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... proselytizing societies, for they were rising into power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them into easy connection with magic and astrology, which are as attractive to the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar superstitions to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... is astrology, my dear—a much more useful science. Come, and I will give you a lesson. Do you see that dim planet swinging low on the horizon? That is my star. Its name is Saturn. It is the star of mischief and rebellion. I was born under that star, and I shall always hate ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... Second made no sublime appearance when he was brought before Mr. Marshal, nor could all his astrology avail upon this occasion. The evidence of the pawnbroker was so positive as to the fact of his having sold to him the dog-collar, that there was no resource left for Bampfylde but an appeal to Mr. Hill's mercy. He fell on his ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... characteristics, and qualifications of man and the ways of determining them in advance of actual performance. The first of these has been characterized by loose thinking, unscientific methods, arbitrary and complicated systems—- such as palmistry, astrology, physiognomy, phrenology, and others of the same ilk. In these systems, some truth, patiently learned by sincere and able workers, has been befogged and contaminated by hasty conclusions of the incompetent and clever lies of charlatans. ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... perpetually produced, the arts of detecting them have improved with greater rapidity. Hence since the introduction of printing, superstition has been much lessened by the reformation of religion; and necromancy, astrology, chiromancy, witchcraft, and vampyrism, have vanished from all classes of society; though some are still so weak in the present enlightened times as to believe in the prodigies of animal magnetism, and of ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... Medicis, who possessed the most implicit confidence in the so-called science of astrology, and who was always anxious to penetrate the mystery of the future, having been informed on her return to Paris that a certain Giorgio Luminelli, a native of Ragusa who was celebrated as a soothsayer, had ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... just the man that Budowa required. He was weak in body and in mind. He had ruined his health, said popular scandal, by indulging in dissolute pleasures. His face was shrivelled, his hair bleached, his back bent, his step tottering. He was too much interested in astrology, gems, pictures, horses, antique relics and similar curiosities to take much interest in government; he suffered from religious mania, and was constantly afraid of being murdered; and his daily hope and prayer was that he might be spared all needless trouble in this vexatious ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... history, and in His foreknowledge of the future, and made the basis of a warning to Israel to cast away despondency. Then follows a song of triumph over Babylon, the proud and luxurious, whose doom all her magic and astrology cannot avert (xlvii.). Ch. xlviii. strikes in places a different note from that of the previous chapters. They are a message of comfort; and, where the people are censured, it is for lack of faith and responsiveness. In this chapter, on the other hand, ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... but hath something not common, it is more pleasing to them that make it; and this happens, when their knowledge is greater than that of the vulgar, as suppose they are well skilled in points of astrology or logic. For not only in action and serious matters, but also in discourse, every one hath a natural disposition to be pleased ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... before me. It may have escaped your memory in the din of other things, that in the time when Oliver Cromwell still walked the earth, there lived in England a man by the name of Kenelm Digby, who was renowned in astrology and alchemy, piracy, wit, philosophy and fashion. It appears that wherever learning wagged its bulbous head, Sir Kenelm was of the company. It appears, also, that wherever the mahogany did most groan, wherever the possets were spiced most ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... functions of King's commissary. It was during his government at Hamburg and his stay in Jutland that hernadotte unconsciously paved his way to the throne of Sweden. I recollect that he had also his presages and his predestinations. In short, he believed in astrology, and I shall never forget the serious tone in which he one day said to me, "Would you believe, my dear friend, that it was predicted at Paris that I should be a King, but that I must cross the sea to reach my throne?" I could not help smiling with him at this ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... inquisitive as to futurity," said the King, "but I have seen so many false and improbable things, that I am satisfied there is no truth in that pretended art. Not many years since there came hither a man of great reputation in astrology; everybody went to see him; I went among others, but without saying who I was, and I carried with me the Duke of Guise and Descars, and made them go in first; nevertheless the astrologer addressed himself first to me, as if he had concluded me ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... realities of the classics, none of the grotesquenesses of chivalry, none of the allegory of the middle ages; there is no sectarianism either of politics or religion, no miser, no witch,—no common witch,—no astrology—nothing impermanent of however long duration; but he stands like the yew tree in Lorton vale, which has known so many ages that it belongs to none in particular; a living image of endless self-reproduction, like ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... born. Our hero, Guy Mannering, entering into the simple humour of Mr. Bertram, his host, agreed to calculate the infant's horoscope by the stars, having in early youth studied with an old clergyman who had a firm belief in astrology. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... worshipped them as deities. Historical records of astronomy carry us back several thousand years. During the greater part of this time, and until a comparatively recent period, astronomy was associated with astrology—a science which originated from a desire on the part of mankind to penetrate the future, and which was based upon the supposed influence of the heavenly bodies upon human and terrestrial affairs. It was natural to imagine ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... could recommend to the statesman or the scholar the uncouth dialect of his Hebrew slaves? The history and geography of the world were familiar to his memory: the lives of the heroes of the East, perhaps of the West, [6] excited his emulation: his skill in astrology is excused by the folly of the times, and supposes some rudiments of mathematical science; and a profane taste for the arts is betrayed in his liberal invitation and reward of the painters of Italy. [7] But the influence of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... to College, Secure that never yet she's failed. Her subjects will not be curtailed: On catacombs she'll wax ecstatic, Yet much objects to be dogmatic. She's great on ornithology, And also on astrology; She lets the Dog Star go astray, But revels in the Milky Way. She claims the Manx to be a nation, And holds strong views about cre(a)mation; At Mewnham they declare she's sure A first-class ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... friend miles away and invents the telephone; he imagines a better society than the one which galls him, and writes a "Utopia"; above all he theorizes and speculates. According to his age or ability these speculations give us alchemy or chemistry, astrology or astronomy, magic or religion, spiritism or psychology, the were-wolf or psycho-analysis, phrenology or psychiatry, and so on. Now three generalizations can be made about these primitive or elaborated philosophizings: first, ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... discoprire, says the Italian text of his letter to Soderini). Born at Florence on the 9th of March, 1451, Amerigo Vespucci belonged to a family of distinction and wealth. He had made mathematics, natural philosophy, and astrology (as it was then called) his special studies. His knowledge of history and literature, judging from his letters, appears to have been somewhat vague and ill-digested. He left Florence in 1492 without any special aim ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... born in 1584, died in 1659, a notorious woman who used to go about in man's clothing and was the target for much abuse. Astrological allusions: 'Were we not born under Taurus?' 'That's sides and hearts,' which refers to the medical astrology still preserved in patent-medicine almanacs, where the figure of a man has his various parts named by the signs of the Zodiac. 'Diana's lip' (I. iv.), ('Arion on the Dolphin's back' I. ii.), are examples of mythological allusions. Of the geographical allusions there ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... lachrymals, and sepulchral lamps. He had astronomical and chemical instruments, and black-letter books, in various languages. I found that he had dipped a little in chimerical studies and had a hankering after astrology and alchymy. He affected to believe in dreams and visions, and delighted in the fanciful Rosicrucian doctrines. I cannot persuade myself, however, that he really believed in all these: I rather think he loved to let his imagination carry him away into the boundless ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music. These constituted the seven liberal arts. Greek, Hebrew, and the physical sciences received but little attention. Medicine had not yet freed itself from the influence of magic and astrology, and alchemy had not yet given birth to chemistry. The Ptolemaic theory of the universe still held sway. However, in all these matters the European mind was making progress, was blindly groping its way ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... Louis XIV. with old Maintenon proves how impossible it is to escape one's fate. The King said one day to the Duc de Crequi and to M. de La Rochefoucauld, long before he knew Mistress Scarron, "I am convinced that astrology is false. I had my nativity cast in Italy, and I was told that, after living to an advanced age, I should be in love with an old ——- to the last moment of my existence. I do not think there is any great likelihood ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... believe in one God, in heaven and hell, and in good and bad angels that attend upon every person[144]. They build sumptuous temples, in which they have images of vast size. They are very religious, sparing in their diet, much given to divination, and addicted to the study of astrology. The country is exceedingly fertile, and abounds in gold, silver, and other metals. The memorable services of the subjects are recorded that they may be read to the kings. When the king of Siam takes the field, he is able to set on foot a force of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... on the high plateau stands an old monastery with a huge, dark red tower, which is known as the "Temple Lamas City," containing a gigantic bronze gilded statue of Buddha sitting on the golden flower of the lotus; tens of smaller temples, shrines, obo, open altars, towers for astrology and the grey city of the Lamas consisting of single-storied houses and yurtas, where about 60,000 monks of all ages and ranks dwell; schools, sacred archives and libraries, the houses of Bandi and the inns for the honored guests from China, Tibet, and ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... you don't believe me, call in a consulting engineer. I've worked the blinking thing out three times. I admit the answers were entirely different, but that's not my fault. I never did like astrology. I tell you the beastly chest holds twenty-seven thousand point nine double eight recurring cubic inches of air. Some other fool can reduce that to rods, and there you are. I'm fed up with it. Thanks to the machinations ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... Germany. Unfortunately there is no such easy way out of our troubles for Germany or for any other nation. Some of us will live to see this fetich of regimental instruction of everybody disappear as astrology has disappeared. There is a Japanese proverb which runs, "The bottom ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... there ought to be, some collection of the nomenclature and mythological history of the heavens, with a familiar treatise on astrology ancient and modern. The Chaldeans, Egyptians, Grecians, Arabs, Celts, and Norsemen, must have had names and stories, whose relation (both in itself and to one another) would make a very pretty volume either of poetry or prose. Perhaps some ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... Triumphatus, the greatest part of which is derived from More's Collections. His hallucinations on the subject of witchcraft, from which none of the English writers of the Platonic school were exempt, are the more extraordinary, as a sister error, judicial astrology, met in More with its most able oppugner. His tract, which has excited much less attention than its merit deserves, (I have not been able to trace a single quotation from it in any author during the last century,) is entitled "Tetractys Anti-astrologica, or a Confutation of Astrology." ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... similar stories were centuries old. The most improbable things were repeated from generation to generation without its occurring to any one to inquire if there was any truth in them. Even the most learned men of the time believed in astrology and in the miraculous virtues of herbs and gems. For instance, Albertus Magnus, one of the most distinguished scientists of the thirteenth century, agrees that a sapphire will drive away boils and that the diamond can be softened in the blood of a stag, which will work best ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... sum. The Raver and idle Talker in cases of Conscience. The Fat Belly of the Presidents. The Baffling Flouter of the Abbots. Sutoris adversus eum qui vocaverat eum Slabsauceatorem, et quod Slabsauceatores non sunt damnati ab Ecclesia. Cacatorium medicorum. The Chimney-sweeper of Astrology. Campi clysteriorum per paragraph C. The Bumsquibcracker of Apothecaries. The Kissbreech of Chirurgery. Justinianus de Whiteleperotis tollendis. Antidotarium animae. Merlinus Coccaius, de patria diabolorum. The Practice ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... to profane the temples, by smoking their pipes, and taking refreshments, and even by gambling, within the consecrated precincts. The priests are shameless impostors. They practise the mountebank sciences of astrology, divination, necromancy, and animal magnetism, and keep for sale a liquid, which, they pretend, will confer immortality on those ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Such fervent heat His stomach doth gnaw. He cannot well fly Nor sing tunably. . . . . The best that we can To make him our bellman, And let him ring the bells, He can do nothing else. Chanticlere our cock Must tell what is of the clock By the astrology That he hath naturally Conceived and caught, And was never taught. . . . . To Jupiter I call Of heaven imperial That Philip may fly Above the starry sky To greet the pretty wren That is our Lady's hen, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Kazis and the merchant seated by him on the other. Presently King Sharrkan called to her and said, "O Queen, the glory of thine age, this merchant hath described thee as being learned and accomplished; and he claimeth that thou art skilled in all branches of knowledge, even to astrology: so let us hear something of all this he hath mentioned, and favour us with a short discourse on such subjects." She replied, saying: "O King, to hear is to obey.[FN259] The first subjects whereof I will treat are the art of government and the duties of Kings and what behoveth governors ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... salvation (literally 'release') for a philologist (na cabdac[a]str[a]bhiratasya mokshas), nor for one that delights in catching (men) in the world, nor for one addicted to food and dress, nor for one pleased with a fine house. By means of prodigies, omens, astrology, palmistry, teaching, and talking let him not seek alms ... he best knows salvation who (cares for naught)' ... (such are the verses). Let him neither harm nor do good to anything.... Avoidance of disagreeable conduct, jealousy, presumption, selfishness, lack of belief, lack of uprightness, self-praise, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... many lands and among many peoples is also attested in its remarkable nomenclature. Consider its range in ancient, medieval and modern thought as shown in some of its definitions: Magic, sorcery, soothsaying, necromancy, astrology, wizardry, mysticism, occultism, and conjuring, of the early and middle ages; compacts with Satan, consorting with evil spirits, and familiarity with the Devil, of later times; all at last ripening into an epidemic demonopathy with its countless victims of fanaticism ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... was over, it was understood throughout the castle that lord Herbert was constructing a horoscope—not that there were many in the place who understood what a horoscope really was, or had any knowledge of the modes of that astrology in whose results they firmly believed; yet Kaltoff having been seen carrying several mysterious-looking instruments to the top of the library tower, the word was presently in everybody's mouth. Nor were the lovers of marvel likely to be disappointed, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... to be loved in return, secure in the consciousness he was not outside the Divine order. His book, he felt, would change theology to theonomy, even as Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo had changed astrology to astronomy. This chain of thoughts, forged link by link, without rest, without hurry, as he sat grinding his glasses, day by day, and year by year: these propositions, laboriously polished like his telescope and microscope lenses, were no less designed ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... well known that the age reposed a deep confidence in the vain predictions of judicial astrology, and Leicester, though exempt from the general control of superstition, was not in this respect superior to his time, but, on the contrary, was remarkable for the encouragement which he gave to the professors of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... or in schismatical Russia, or in the Mahometan populations, or in the Catholic Church. If ever there was a subject of thought, which had earned by prescription to be received among the studies of a University, and which could not be rejected except on the score of convicted imposture, as astrology or alchemy; if there be a science anywhere, which at least could claim not to be ignored, but to be entertained, and either distinctly accepted or distinctly reprobated, or rather, which cannot be passed over ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... to his judgment, and depend on it: And he brought over so many to a submission to his opinion, that I never knew any man equal to him in the art of governing parties, and of making himself the head of them. He was as to religion a Deist at best: He had the dotage of Astrology in him to a high degree: He told me, that a Dutch doctor had from the stars foretold him the whole series of his life. But that which was before him, when he told me this, proved false, if he told ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... Babylonia built up a wonderful civilisation. They had temples and brick-built houses, libraries of tablets revealing knowledge of astronomy and astrology; they had a literature of their own. Suddenly from out the city of Ur (Kerbela), near the ancient mouth of the Euphrates, appears a traveller. There had doubtless been many before, but records are scanty and hard to piece together, and a detailed account ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... at Lichfield, and became a solicitor in 1638. On the breaking out of the Civil War he sided with the royalists; went to Oxford and studied science, including astrology. The result of his studies in this region of mystery was his Theatrum Chymicum Britannicum, which gained him great repute and the friendship of John Selden. His last astrological treatise was The Way to Bliss, which dealt with ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... find in the traditions of ASTROLOGY, some pretty and apt divisions of men's natures,'—so in the discussions which occur on this same point in Lear, where this part of philosophy comes under a more particular consideration, and the great ministry which it would yield to morality and ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... intersect at the birthplace of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. The birthlines of Caesar and Columbus—drawn, the one due west from Rome, the other due south from Genoa—cross each other within a few miles of Ajaccio! It is a circumstance that might well incline one to astrology. ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... embodied in forms beyond our apprehension; for who shall say what actual being may or may not correspond to that potentiality of life or sensation which is all that the external world can be to our science? When astrology invented the horoscope it made an absurdly premature translation of celestial hieroglyphics into that language of universal destiny which in the end they may be made to speak. The perfect astronomer, when he ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Hobgoblins, Presentiments, Second Sight, and Supernatural Appearances; Magical Practices and Conjuration; Daemonology, Spectres, and Vampires; Popular Superstitions, Popish Credulity, Delusions, Ecstacies, Fanaticisms, and Impostures; Astrology, Divination, Revelations, and Prophecies; Necromancy, Sorcery, and Witchcraft; Infatuation, Diabolical Possession, and Enthusiasm; Proverbs, Old Sayings, and Vulgar Errors; the Household Book of Sir Ed. Coke, Original MS.; Early English Poetry, MS. temp. James I.; Grammatical Treatises printed by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... division of opinion in the French camp. Independently of military grounds, a great deal was said about certain letters from Robert, King of Naples, "a mighty necromancer and full of mighty wisdom, it was reported, who, after having several times cast their horoscopes, had discovered by astrology and from experience, that, if his cousin, the King of France, were to fight the King of England, the former would be worsted." "In thus disputing and debating," says Froissart, "the time passed till full midday. A little afterwards a hare came leaping across the fields, and rushed amongst the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... profitable arts of peace. Till then the interests of learning had been crushed by the superstition and bigotry of the times. In the fourteenth century even, the most celebrated university in Europe, that of Bologna, bestowed its chief honors upon the professorship of astrology. But these grand developments in art and science gave a new impulse to social life. Thenceforward the interests of education began to thrive. The patronage given to popular instruction by many of the rulers of European States has imparted a lustre to their annals, which will almost atone for ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews
... superintendency of the Chinese members of this august tribunal is committed the astrological part, a committee of whom is selected annually for the execution of this important task. Whether the men of letters, as they call themselves, really believe in the absurdities of judicial astrology, or whether they may think it necessary to encourage the observance of popular superstitions, on political considerations, I will not take upon me to decide. If, however, they should happen to possess any such superior knowledge, great credit is due to them for ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... much attention. It was believed that the five planets, comets, and eclipses of the sun and moon exerted an influence for good or evil on the life of man. Babylonian astrology likewise extended to western lands and became popular among the Greeks and Romans. Some of it survives to the present time. When we name the days Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we are unconscious ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... made jests, saying that I should soon practice astrology in the palace. But, as soon as we might, I and my uncle escaped, and made our way back to the house. All the while he rated me for my rashness; but when we came to the chamber of the house he embraced me and rejoiced greatly, because I had overthrown the giant ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... hands of such a prattling, impertinent fellow; what an unseasonable adventure was it for a lover preparing for an interview with his mistress! I was quite irritated. "I care not," said I, in anger, "for your advice and predictions; I did not call you to consult your astrology; you came hither to shave me; shave me, or begone." "I will call another barber, sir," replied he, with a coolness that put me out of all patience; "what reason have you to be angry with me? You ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... this ride had made acquaintance for the first time with Colonel Mansfield and Alice. All this was wonderful enough to me, as Theodora explained it to me when I lifted her off her horse, but when I found that Horace Putnam and his brother Enoch were in the same train, I said I did believe in astrology. ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... not only rob the farmer of his cattle and the shepherd of his livelihood but you would even break the law of the land in which it is written that a farmer may not graze a young orchard with that pestiferous animal which astrology has placed in the heavens ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... been thus, in the case of God and of humanity, has it not been equally so in the case of the physical world? Where are now all those unnatural superstitions—the monkish contempt for marriage and social life, the ghosts and devils; the astrology, the magic, and other dreams of which I will not speak here, which made this world, in the eyes of our forefathers, a doleful and dreadful puzzle; and which made man the sport of arbitrary powers, of cruel beings, who could torment and destroy us, but over whom we ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... prattling impertinent barber; what an unseasonable adventure it was for a lover preparing for an interview! I was quite angry. I do not trouble my head, said I, in anger, with your advice and predictions, nor did I call you to consult your astrology; you came here to shave me, so pray do it, or be gone, and I will call another barber. Sir, said he, with a dulness that put me out of all patience, what reason have you to be angry with me? You do not know that all barbers are not like me, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... library companion is fast drawing to a close, the present Part extending from Vance (William Ford) to Wilcocks (Thomas).—The Retrospective Review, No. VII., contains some amusing articles on Ancient Paris, Davies the Epigrammatist, the Turks in the Seventeenth Century, Astrology, &c. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... the king was blessed with a very beautiful daughter; she was the fairest maiden in the whole land of Israel. Her father observed the stars, to discover by astrology who was destined to be her mate in life and wed her, when lo! he saw that his future son-in-law would be the poorest man in the nation. Now, what did Solomon do? He built a high tower by the sea, and surrounded it on all sides with inaccessible walls; he then took his daughter ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... obscurity where he lurks, detect him by the light of those stars he has so impudently traduced, and shew there's not a monster in the skies so pernicious and malevolent to mankind, as an ignorant pretender to physick and astrology. I shall not directly fall on the many gross errors, nor expose the notorious absurdities of this prostituted libeller, till I have let the learned world fairly into the controversy depending, and then leave the unprejudiced to ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... The heavenly bodies are traced to precisely the same sort of origin; and hence, we conclude, come their strange animal names, and the strange myths about them which appear in all ancient poetry. These names, in turn, have curiously affected human beliefs. Astrology is based on the opinion that a man's character and fate are determined by the stars under which he is born. And the nature of these stars is deduced from their names, so that the bear should have been found in the horoscope of Dr. Johnson. When Giordano Bruno wrote his satire against religion, ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... her retiring-room, or whatever else you like to call it—where she sits brooding in silence, watching the stars and the moon sometimes, ye ken, or reading romances and works on philosophy, metaphysics, astrology, and other subjects far too deep for my poor brain," said Lawrence, as ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... there were generally three sorts of professorships—one for civil law, another for canonical law, the third for medicine; in course of time professorships of rhetoric, of philosophy, and of astronomy were added, the last commonly, though not always, identical with astrology. The salaries varied greatly in different cases. Sometimes a capital sum was paid down. With the spread of culture, competition became so active that the different universities tried to entice away distinguished ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... looked on her as a princess who had come to prepare the way for the expected conquest of their land by the English. Her influence increased through the prestige created by her wealth and magnificence, as well as by her imperious character and dauntless bravery. She believed in magic, astrology, and, incredible as it may appear, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... Villeneuve was one of the luminaries of the 13th century, being distinguished for his profound knowledge of medicine, chemistry, astrology, and theology. He discovered the sulphuric, muriatic and nitric acids, and was the first to compose alcohol and the ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... half-witted beau, vain of his amours, yet valuing himself for secrecy,—Mr Bowman. BEN, Sir Sampson's younger son, half home-bred and half sea-bred, designed to marry Miss Prue,—Mr Dogget. FORESIGHT, an illiterate old fellow, peevish and positive, superstitious, and pretending to understand astrology, palmistry, physiognomy, omens, dreams, etc; uncle to Angelica,—Mr Sanford. JEREMY, servant to Valentine,—Mr Bowen. TRAPLAND, a scrivener,—Mr Triffusis. BUCKRAM, ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... has been said, by Andrea Pisano. In the first Luca made Donato teaching grammar; in the second, Plato and Aristotle, standing for philosophy; in the third, a figure playing a lute, for music; in the fourth, a Ptolemy, for astrology; and in the fifth, Euclid, for geometry. These scenes, in perfection of finish, in grace, and in design, were far in advance of the two made, as it has been said, by Giotto, in one of which Apelles, standing for painting, is working with his brush, while in the other Pheidias, representing ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol 2, Berna to Michelozzo Michelozzi • Giorgio Vasari
... the notions about judicial astrology, then prevalent in Europe, crept into the native understanding, and notably, in the Books of Chilan Balam we find forecastes of lucky and unlucky days, and discussions of planetary influence, evidently borrowed from the Spanish almanacs of the ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... speculation in regard to her future had been nearly as common during his lifetime as it was after his death. One of the duties most congenial to society, and one which it never fails to perform conscientiously, is that judicial astrology, whereby it forecasts the issue of its neighbour's doings. Everybody's social horoscope must be cast by the circle of five-o'clock-tea-drinking astro-sociologists, and, generally speaking, their predictions are not far short of the truth, for society ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford |
