"Astrology" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and ghastly. Then, if you plan it, he Changes organity With an urbanity, Full of Satanity, Vexes humanity With an inanity Fatal to vanity - Driving your foes to the verge of insanity. Barring tautology, In demonology, 'Lectro biology, Mystic nosology, Spirit philology, High class astrology, Such is his knowledge, he Isn't the man to require an apology Oh! My name is JOHN WELLINGTON WELLS, I'm a dealer in magic and spells, In blessings and curses, And ever-filled purses - In prophecies, witches, and knells. If any one anything lacks, He'll find it all ready ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... two of the tombs which covered the heroes of Ilium, barely tall enough to reach half-way to his knee, and of the length, in proportion to the size of the traveller, of ordinary octavo volumes. He had black-letter books, too, on astrology, and on the planetary properties of vegetables; and an ancient book on medicine, that recommended as a cure for the toothache a bit of the jaw of a suicide, well triturated; and, as an infallible remedy for the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... medicine for every 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
... historic thought. They came to light 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 central Figure of ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... slight tenure upon which all men held their lives, naturally threw their thoughts much upon the other world; and communications with that, or its burthen of secrets, by every variety of agencies, ghosts, divination, natural magic, palmistry, or astrology, found in every city of the land ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... replied he, "if thou but knew what is about to befall thee, thou wouldst do nothing this day, and I counsel thee to act as I tell thee by computation of the constellations." "By Allah," said I, "never did I see a barber who excelled in judicial astrology save thyself: but I think and I know that thou art most prodigal of frivolous talk. I sent for thee only to shave my head, but thou comest and pesterest me with this sorry prattle." "What more wouldst thou have?" replied he. "Allah hath bounteously bestowed on thee a Barber who is ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... remarkable reputation, namely John Varley [54], the water colour painter and occultist, and the Rev. Robert Montgomery. [55] An artist of undoubted genius, Varley usually got fair prices for his pictures, but the expenses of a numerous family kept him miserably poor. Then he took to "judicial astrology," and eventually made it a kind of second profession. Curious to say, some of his predictions came true, and thanks to this freak of fate he obtained more fame from his horoscopes than from his canvasses. He "prognosticated," says Burton, "that I was to become a great astrologer." ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... any of the other poetical translations of Goethe. The preliminary remarks are very characteristic, written with that intense enthusiasm which still animates all his writings. The notes at the end are full of curious information regarding the witchcraft and astrology of the Middle Ages, gathered with assiduous labour from the stores of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... were also weakened, for the important sciences of astrology, miracle, and divination, supported by the cell, have been losing ground ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... of the Muses, the plagiarisms of Petrarch, the wonders of astrology. Her uneasiness revived. In a voice more musical than the rota ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... conquerors or as corrupted guardians of the human race, they seek the same ends,—to divert worship from the true God, and by the destruction of man, to contrive a solace for their own perdition. They are the inventors of astrology, sooth-saying, divination, necromancy, and black magic; they were once the ministers of God, and still have a presentiment of his acts, so that they can sometimes speak truly of the future by means of oracles and magicians, claiming the while the credit of bringing that to pass ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... Astrology may rest on better foundations than Magic. For if no one has seen either Goblins, or Lemures, or Dives, or Peris, or Demons, or Cacodemons, the predictions of astrologers have often been seen to succeed. If of two ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... mistakes that men have made in supposing that their knowledge was the ne plus ultra of human wisdom. Time was when the alchemists thought they possessed the ne plus ultra of human knowledge, and that wisdom would die with them; yet their knowledge is now to chemistry what astrology is to astronomy. It is a superstition on whose claims no scientist would dare to risk his reputation. Now chemistry is the ne plus ultra of human wisdom, and every man is a fool who does not hold the key to the secret chambers of ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... is my fair kinswoman's bower—her boudoir, 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 he ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... incessant conflicts by the more 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 ...
— Reflections on the Operation of the Present System of Education, 1853 • Christopher C. Andrews
... of his counsellors, who exaggerated his resources and his strength, as much as they underrated those of his enemies; or the exhortations of his preachers, who announced the effusions of their fanatical zeal as the immediate inspiration of heaven? The dreams of astrology filled his mind with visionary hopes; even love conspired, with its irresistible fascination, to complete the seduction. "Had you," demanded the Electress, "confidence enough in yourself to accept the hand of a king's daughter, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... enraptured by a wealth of new expressions and new turns of speech in their mother tongue. But all these belonged to Behmen, or were fashioned on the model of his symbolical language. As it is, with all his astrology, and all his alchemy, and all his barbarities of form and expression, I for one will always take sides with the author of The Serious Call, and The Spirit of Prayer, and The Spirit of Love, and The ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... of the "couseners" he was at great pains to explain. Not less than one-third of his work is given up to setting forth the methods of conjurers, card tricks, sleight-of-hand performances, illusions of magic, materializations of spirits, and the wonders of alchemy and astrology. In the range of his information about these subjects, the discoverer was encyclopedic. No current form of dabbling with the supernatural ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... the primary elements. Amara-Singha compiled a Sanskrit dictionary and a philosophical treatise. Shankubetalabhatta composed comments, and Ghatakarpara a poetical work of no great merit. The books of Mihira are not mentioned. Varaha produced two works on astrology and one on arithmetic. And Bararuchi introduced certain improvements in grammar, commented upon the incantations, and wrote a poem in ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... Apollonius Rhodius: doubtless it continued the same theme of how to live, showing how man can avoid disasters by attending to the omens to be drawn from birds. It is possible that the "Astronomy" or "Astrology" (as Plutarch calls it) was in turn appended to the "Divination". It certainly gave some account of the principal constellations, their dates of rising and setting, and the legends connected with them, and probably showed how these ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... himself, a soft, good-natured, pliable man, welcomed Mannering (for that was the name of the young Oxford student), and set him forthwith to calculating the horoscope of the babe from the stars. This, Mannering, to whom astrology seemed no better than child's play, was at first unwilling to do, until the awkward opposition of Dominie Sampson, as well as some curiosity to see if he could remember the terms of the sham-science learned in youth, caused him to consent ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... attended his parishes, I know not. It was not till about four years afterwards that he became a professed author; and then, one year, 1708, produced the Sentiments of a Church of England Man; the ridicule of astrology, under the name of Bickerstaff; the Argument against abolishing Christianity, and the Defence of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... their body, from the time he entered the schools of the Academy, had literally encumbered himself with the medals given as prizes for drawing. It was asserted that they did not draw in perspective, by men who themselves knew no more of perspective than they did of astrology; it was asserted that they sinned against the appearances of nature, by men who had never drawn so much as a leaf or a blossom from nature in their lives. And, lastly, when all these calumnies or absurdities would ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... usually went straight from point to point without regard to obstacles. Hence, in his devious wanderings of that remarkable day, he was departing from fixed habit, and, were he a student of astrology, he would assuredly have sought to ascertain what planets were in the ascendant at a quarter-past ten in the morning, and half-past seven in the evening. For he had scarcely reached the quiet gloom of the trees when a man, who had followed ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... stopped, a step half taken, his gaze upon the floor, his hands clasped behind him. He stood so still it would not have been amiss to believe a thought was all the life there was in him. He certainly did believe in astrology. Had not men been always ruled by what they imagined heavenly signs? How distinctly he remembered the age of the oracle and the augur! Upon their going out he became a believer in the stars as prophets, and then an adept; afterwhile he reached a stage when he habitually ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... with her trappings or War with arms. Thus the growth of chemistry was slow, and by reason of its backwardness it was longer than any other art in ridding itself of the leading-strings of magic and astrology. Practical discoveries must have been made many times without science acquiring thereby any new fact. For to prevent a new discovery from being lost there must be such a combination of favorable circumstances as was rare in that age and for many succeeding ages. There must be publicity, and publicity ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... based on the story of Susanna. The Tritameron of Love is a dialogue without action, but Arbasto, or the Anatomie of Fortune returns to the novel form, as does The Card of Fancy. Planetomachia is a collection of stories, illustrating the popular astrological notions, with an introduction on astrology generally. Penelope's Web is another collection of stories, but The Spanish Masquerado is one of the most interesting of the series. Written just at the time of the Armada, it is pure journalism—a ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... Padua, where he speedily gained a great reputation as a physician, and availed himself of it to gratify his avarice by refusing to visit patients except for an exorbitant fee. Perhaps this, as well as his meddling with astrology, caused him to be charged with practising magic, the particular accusations being that he brought back into his purse, by the aid of the devil, all the money he paid away, and that he possessed the philosopher's ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... listen attentively to what I have to say," returned the king, graciously taking my arm and leading me to a window overlooking the river. "I hear from De Grammont that the Abbe du Boise is a firm believer in the teachings of astrology. I want you to arrange, without letting any one know that my finger is in the pie, to take Lilly to see the Abbe, or the Abbe to see Lilly. I'll whisper a word in your ear. The stars will tell our friend, the Abbe, a story to suit our purposes. The French ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... of India, assembled by the king, composed the Sindhind. Further on[23] he states, upon the authority of the historian Mo[h.]ammed ibn 'Al[i] 'Abd[i], that by order of Al-Man[s.][u]r many works of science and astrology were translated into Arabic, notably the Sindhind (Siddh[a]nta). Concerning the meaning and spelling of this name there is considerable diversity of opinion. Colebrooke[24] first pointed out the connection between Siddh[a]nta and Sindhind. He ascribes ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... Human Longevity MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE—An important Discovery; Jennie Collins; Greek Philosophy; Symposiums; Literature of the Past; The Concord School; New Books; Solar Biology; Dr. Franz Hartmann; Progress of Chemistry; Astronomy; Geology Illustrated; A Mathematical Prodigy; Astrology in England; Primogeniture Abolished; Medical Intolerance and Cunning; Negro Turning White; The Cure of Hydrophobia; John Swinton's Paper; Women's Rights and Progress; Spirit writing; Progress of the Marvellous Chapter VII.—Practical Utility of Anthropology (Concluded) Chapter VIII.—The Origin ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... regularly organized. Branch schools were also established in the several provinces. In the university there were departments for Chinese literature, for medicine, for astronomy and almanac-making, and for astrology. Under the first head were included the art of writing the Chinese characters, the practice of composition, the study of the Chinese classics, and the reading of books of Chinese history. In like manner the training of the students in medicine chiefly consisted ...
— Japan • David Murray
... three invisible things, but the manifestation of God {627} in the Word and a communication of the substance of God in the Spirit." This is no new rationalism coming in but a reversion to an obsolete heresy, that of Paul of Samosata. It does not surprise us to find Servetus lecturing on astrology. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... gentleman. "I have consulted the book of Fate with rare and wonderful success. I am versed in the great sciences of astrology and astronomy. In my house here, I have every description of apparatus for observing the course and motion of the planets. Six months ago, I derived from this source, the knowledge that precisely as the clock struck five this afternoon a stranger would present himself - the destined husband ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... this remark: "It was also at that time that all the illusions of magic ceased, as is attested by so many celebrated authors." Tertullian, in the book which he has written on Idolatry, says, "We know the strict union there is between magic and astrology. God permitted that science to reign on the earth till the time of the Gospel, in order that after the birth of Jesus Christ no one might be found who should undertake to read in the heavens the happiness or misfortunes of any person whomsoever." A little after, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... he shifted his abode to the University of Rostock, where he speedily made himself notable in connection with an eclipse of the moon on 28th October, 1566. Like every other astronomer of those days, Tycho had always associated astronomy with astrology. He considered that the phenomena of the heavenly bodies always had some significance in connection with human affairs. Tycho was also a poet, and in the united capacity of poet, astrologer, and astronomer, he posted up ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... among the Babylonians and ancient Arabians. This astrolatry, originally a kind of fetichism, became nature-worship, and gradually rose to the worship of the intelligence manifested to our contemplation in the movement of the heavenly luminaries. Astrology arose, and religion no longer expressed itself in passive acquiescence, but was united with the effort to guide the life by the knowledge to be drawn, as men imagined, from ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... modern example, was the dual system of two kings reigning in one city. As a result probably of their sea-going taste, the study of the stars became a characteristic pursuit, and this race made great advances both in astronomy and astrology. ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... book of Sir Kenelm Digby. Yet it lies 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 ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... directive idea may be suggested by a series of ideas which lead the recipient of them to expect that the series will be continued. Then he will not perceive if the series is broken. In the Renaissance period no degree of illumination sufficed to resist the delusion of astrology, because it was supported by a passionate fantasy and a vehement desire to know the future, and because it was confirmed by antiquity, the authority of whose opinions was overwhelmingly suggested by all the faiths ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... so returns home. The old man now has once more recourse to his art; but on seeing Saemund's star shining brightly above him, he exclaimed: "My pupil is still living; so much the better. I have taught him more than enough; for he outdoes me both in astrology and magic. Let them now proceed in safety; I am unable ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... mankind are so very fond of this world, and of staying in it, that a man cannot have eminent skill in any one art, but they will, in spite of his teeth, make him a physician also, that being the science the worldlings have most need of. I pretended, when I first set up, to astrology only; but I am told, I have deep skill also in medicine. I am applied to now by a gentleman for my advice in behalf of his wife, who, upon the least matrimonial difficulty, is excessively troubled with fits, and can bear no manner of passion without falling into immediate convulsions. ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... 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 ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... practice of divination is of very ancient date in China, traceable, it has been suggested, back to the Canon of Changes (see above), which is commonly used by the lettered classes for that purpose. A variety of other methods, the chief of which is astrology, have also been adopted, and have yielded a considerable bulk of literature. Even the officially-published almanacs still mark certain days as suitable for certain undertakings, while other days are marked in the opposite sense. The spirit of Zadkiel pervades the Chinese empire. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... 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
... government to the rank and dignity of a science by making it appeal to the reason instead of the fear and superstition of the people. The governments of the past, basing their claims upon divine right, bear about the same relation to democracy that astrology and alchemy do to the modern sciences of astronomy and chemistry. The old political order everywhere represented itself as superimposed on man from above, and, thus clothed with a sort of divine sanction, ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... Dr. Mackey,[39] there was, besides the divine Cabala of the children of Seth, the magical Cabala of the children of Cain, which descended to the Sabeists, or star-worshippers, of Chaldea, adepts in astrology and necromancy. Sorcery, as we know, had been practised by the Canaanites before the occupation of Palestine by the Israelites; Egypt India, and Greece also had their soothsayers and diviners. In spite of the imprecations against sorcery ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... Assure certigi. Assure (life etc.) asekuri. Asterisk steleto. Asthma malfacila spirado. Astonish mirigi. Astonished, to be miri. Astonishing mira. Astonishment miro. Astound miregi. Astral astra. Astray, to go erarigxi. Astringent kuntira. Astrologer astrologiisto. Astrology astrologio. Astronomer astronomiisto. Astronomy astronomio. Astute ruza. Asunder aparte. Asylum rifugxejo. At cxe, je. At (house of) cxe. At all events kio ajn okazos. At any time iam. Atheist ateisto. Atheism ateismo. Athletic ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... A Series of Essays contrasting our Little Abode in Space and Time with the Infinities around us. To which are added Essays on the Jewish Sabbath and Astrology. 12mo. ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... 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 ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... line itself, in important places, of successive minute touches, so that it became a chain of delicate links which could be opened or closed at pleasure.[AC] If you will examine through a lens the outline of the face of this Astrology, you will find it is traced with an exquisite series of minute touches, susceptible of accentuation or change absolutely at the engraver's pleasure; and, in result, corresponding to the finest ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... of the waters. He who is ignorant of electric law is ignorant of hydraulic law; for the one intermixes with the other. It is true there is no study more difficult nor more obscure; it verges on empiricism, just as astronomy verges on astrology; and yet without this study there is no navigation. Having said this ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... leather there's stuff here that will please you. No rubbish, you see; a man's room, a little quaint as to furniture, and the telephone and electric fan are the only anachronisms, a concession to the spirit of modern life. Here I have worked out some most abstruse problems in astrology. A capital place to ponder the mysteries. If anything on that tray interests ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... Talmudists, or poets, were also men of science. There are numerous Jewish works on the calendar, on astronomical instruments and tables, on mathematics, on medicine, and natural history. Some of their writers share the medieval belief in astrology and magic. But it is noteworthy that Abraham Ibn Ezra doubted the common belief in demons, while Maimonides described astrology as "that error called a science." These subjects, however, are too technical for fuller treatment in the present book. More ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... symbol for the silent forces of destiny, really 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 understood at last exactly what pragmatic ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... this lack of careful study of the aptitudes, 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. Thus ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... and every day she increased in beauty and loveliness and stature and perfect grace. And when she reached the age of fourteen she was well read in science and she had perused the annals of the past and she had mastered astrology and geomancy and she wrote with caligraphic pen all the seven handwritings and she was mistress of metres and modes of poetry and still she grew in grace of speech. Now as her age reached her fourteenth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... out into the country; and here Alfonso confest to his friend that, since he had been at Rome, he had devoted himself to the science of astrology, divination, and other like things, which he had formerly held in abhorrence, having been of opinion that they could only be acquired by accursed means and by the help of evil spirits. "But since the day," he continued, "when I made acquaintance ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... this very learned tutor had to instruct me in navigation. Nothing was too high or too low for him. Had any persons wished to have taken lessons in judicial astrology, Mr Riprapton would not have refused the pupil. Plausible ignorance will always beat awkward knowledge, when the ignorant, which is generally the case, make up the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... building another, which was the Hotel de Soissons, near the church of St. Eustache. When it was known to be Laurence de Saint Germain, Bishop of Nazareth, who had attended her upon her death-bed, people infatuated with astrology averred that the prediction had ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... business; now will I be assured whether you are true men or not. You told me that in your own land you were once the Count of Ponthieu, that this man was wedded to your daughter, and that this other was your son. Know that I am a Saracen, having the science of astrology; so I tell you plainly that you were never so near to a shameful death, as you are now, if you hide from me the truth. What chanced to your daughter, the wife of ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... has 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 ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... his studies, also, under a traveling sage who united the mysteries of medicine with magic and legerdemain. His mind, therefore, had become stored with all kinds of mystic lore; he had dabbled a little in astrology, alchemy, divination;[2] knew how to detect stolen money, and to tell where springs of water lay hidden; in a word, by the dark nature of his knowledge he had acquired the name of the "High German Doctor," which is pretty ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Trim, who's in the kitchen? There is no one soul in the kitchen, answered Trim, making a low bow as he spoke, except Dr. Slop.—Confusion! cried my father (getting upon his legs a second time)—not one single thing has gone right this day! had I faith in astrology, brother, (which, by the bye, my father had) I would have sworn some retrograde planet was hanging over this unfortunate house of mine, and turning every individual thing in it out of its place.—Why, I thought ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... off the vagaries of magic and divination, placed astronomy on a scientific basis, though the reaction of the Middle Ages caused even such a great astronomer as Tycho Brahe himself to revert for a time to the practice of astrology. ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... vividness, the unstudied activity, the unexpected leaps and springs that the derivation of the word "caprice" suggests. And, if one cares for mysticism, it is interesting to know that according to the teachings of the ancient science of astrology, which is having a considerable revival at present, the composer is entitled to unconventional methods and an unusual combination of qualities, as he was born on the cusp between the zodiacal signs of Sagittarius and Capricornus. The latter sign produces people who will work well independently, ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page
... 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 ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... renovated Lustre XIX Containing the Achievements of the Knights of the Griffin and Crescent XX In which our Hero descends into the Mansions of the Damned XXI Containing further Anecdotes relating to the Children of Wretchedness XXII In which Captain Crowe is sublimed into the Regions of Astrology XXIII In which the Clouds that cover the Catastrophe begin to disperse XXIV The Knot that puzzles human Wisdom, the Hand of Fortune sometimes will untie familiar as her Garter XXV Which, it is to be hoped, will be, on more accounts than one, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... hast been temperate," said Zadig; "know that there is no such thing in nature as a basilisk; that temperance and exercise are the two great preservatives of health; and that the art of reconciling intemperance and health is as chimerical as the philosopher's stone, judicial astrology, or the theology of ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... his hour. There was a prince in Denmark in those days; And, when he heard how other kings desired The secrets of this new astrology, He said, "This man, in after years, will bring Glory to Denmark, honour to her prince. He is a Dane. Give him this isle of Wheen, And let him make his great discoveries there. Let him have gold to buy his instruments, And build his ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... the true and useful! How much ingenuity has been thrown away in the defence of creeds and systems! How much time and talents have been wasted in theological controversy, in law, in politics, in verbal criticism, in judicial astrology, and in finding out the art of making gold! What actual benefit do we reap from the writings of a Laud or a Whitgift, or of Bishop Bull or Bishop Waterland, or Prideaux' Connections, or Beausobre, or Calmet, or St. Augustine, or Puffendord, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... bridegroom could not find the horse, though they searched in every direction. Then, while Sthuladatta was distressed at the evil omen, and searching for the thieves who had carried off the horse, the wife of Harisarman came and said to him: "My husband is a wise man, skilled in astrology and magical sciences; he can get the horse back for you—why do you not ask him?" When Sthuladatta heard that, he called Harisarman, who said, "Yesterday I was forgotten, but to-day, now the horse is stolen, I am called to mind;" and Sthuladatta then propitiated the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Egyptians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, and other nations (including our own, as did not Lilly predict the execution of Charles I., the plague, the great fire of London, and other events) was astrology practised. The Egyptians peopled the constellation of the Zodiac (the first open book for mankind to read), with Genii, and one of the twelve Zodiacal signs was Aries (the Ram). The ram is of the same species as the goat, and the god Pan was the Goat god, as we know. The astrologers, ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... cultivation of the ground: landmarks, slaves, and agricultural labourers—Scenes of pastoral life: fishing, hunting—Archaic literature; positive sciences: arithmetic and geometry, astronomy and astrology, the science of foretelling the future—The physician; magic and its influence ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... remained, however, the serious question whether Wallenstein would accept his dismissal. His huge and ever-growing army was absolutely under his control. His influence over the troops was extraordinary. A firm believer in astrology, he asserted that the stars promised him certain success, and his followers believed him. Tall and thin, dark and solemn, silent and grim, wearing a scarlet cloak and a long, blood-red feather in his hat, he was declared by popular superstition to be in league with the devil, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... 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, for no sooner ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... taken verbatim from a ten-cent book on astrology; I got tired, and handed the letters over to my wife. She took them seriously, and when she had made what she thought was progress she inadvertently told the chairman of the trustees. That settled him. He resigned forthwith, and we ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... 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. ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... having lost his parents when quite young, he was educated, by the wish of his guardians, at the Jesuit college of Olmutz, and soon changed his faith. In Italy, where he next studied, he made great advances in mathematics, law, languages, and the delusive science of astrology, in which he was a firm believer ever afterward. On his return to Germany, he fought in the imperial army against the Turks, who invaded Hungary. He had considerable estates in Bohemia, which were increased by his marriage, in 1606, with a rich Moravian widow, who died in 1614, and left him her ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... to the instruction of his countrymen, and in order that they might avoid the many mistakes which he himself had made. He also wrote on agriculture, on fortification, and natural history, on which latter subject he even delivered lectures to a limited number of persons. He waged war against astrology, alchemy, witchcraft, and like impostures. This stirred up against him many enemies, who pointed the finger at him as a heretic, and he was again arrested for his religion and imprisoned in the Bastille. He was now an old man of seventy-eight, trembling ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... sixteen the doctrine of divine illumination fascinated him. He struggled to find the path of true devotion; abandoned himself to extremely ritualistic forms of worship; dabbled a little in alchemy and astrology to help develop the divine nature within him and to attain the beatific vision. Soon he was introduced to the "Protestant nunnery," as it was called, where the venerable Mr. Ferran, a friend of George Herbert's, was greatly taken by Inglesant's accomplishments and grace of manner. Various forms ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... archdeacon, "if that be your motive, you would have done as well not to put yourself out of breath climbing my staircase. I do not believe in Medicine. I do not believe in Astrology." ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... name Aegidius Aucupis, devoted himself with indefatigable zeal to the study of letters and the sciences. He gave his nights to mathematics and music, which he called the two adorable sisters, the harmonious daughters of Number and Imagination. He was versed in medicine and astrology. He was suspected of practising magic, and it seemed true that he wrought metamorphoses and discovered ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... 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 ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... substituting the nearest word of Spanish form for the unpronounceable Mexican names. This at least is the ingenious explanation given by my author, the Bachelor Tanco, Professor of the Aztec language, and of Astrology, in the University of Mexico, in the year 1666. The bishop who authenticated the miracle was no less a person than Fray Juan de Zumarraga, whose name is well known in Mexican history, for it was ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... astrology, witchcraft, and the transmutation of copper and lead into gold were generally believed in. In preaching before Queen Elizabeth, Bishop Jewell urged that stringent measures be taken with witches and sorcerers, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... for family and fortune in the kingdom, had imprudently given disgust to the cardinal; and it was not long before he found reason to repent of his indiscretion. He seems to have been a man full of levity and rash projects; and being infatuated with judicial astrology, he entertained a commerce with one Hopkins, a Carthusian friar, who encouraged him in the notion of his mounting one day the throne of England. He was descended by a female from the duke of Glocester, youngest son of Edward III.; and though his claim to the crown was thereby very remote, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... incomparable power of Jehovah as shown in 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. ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... 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 ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... elected, we have every reason to believe that the organization of the priesthood was systematic. The aspirant for the office had to acquaint himself with the songs and prayers used in public worship, the national traditions, their principles of astrology, so as to tell the lucky and unlucky days. When admitted to the priesthood, their rank was doubtless determined by meritorious actions. Successes in war would contribute to this result as well as sanctity, a priest who had captured several prisoners ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... Astrology is well in its place, but this place is second- [5] ary. Necromancy has no foundation,—in fact, no intelligence; and the belief that it has, deceives itself. Whatever simulates power and Truth in matter, does this as a lie declaring itself, that mortals' faith in ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... is born they write down his nativity, that is to say the day and hour, the month, and the moon's age. This custom they observe because every single thing they do is done with reference to astrology, and by advice of diviners skilled in Sorcery and Magic and Geomancy, and such like diabolical arts; and some of them are also acquainted ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the Wizard. After the usual course of university learning at Oxford and Paris, he went to Italy, where he gained the patronage of the Emperor Friedrich II. He was learned in Greek and in Arabic, and an excellent mathematician, but he bewildered himself with alchemy and astrology; and, though he died unmolested in his own country, in 1290 his fame remained in no good odor. Dante describes him among those whose faces were turned backward, because they had refused to turn ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... tops of mountains. They adored fire, light, and the sun as emblems of 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
... up. The verb here shows that influence is employed in its strict sense, a flowing in (Lat. in and fluo): it was thus used in astrology to denote "an influent course of the planets, their virtue being infused into, or their course working on, inferior creatures"; comp. L'Alleg. 112, "whose bright eyes Rain influence"; Par. Lost, iv. 669, "with kindly heat Of various influence." ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... be an error to think of the medicine of the period, either European or Virginian, only in terms of rational or scientific theories. Treatment was too often based on magic, folklore, and superstition. There were physicians relying upon alchemy and astrology; the Royal Touch was held efficacious; and in the materia medica of the period were such substances as foxes' lungs, oils of wolves, and Irish whiskey. Nor should it be forgotten that many of the sick never saw a medical ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... that the flea 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 ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... the cobwalls rang again. In the book was a Latin recipe for drying the poor wryneck, and using him as a philtre which should compel the love of any person desired. Mechanics, it must be understood, in those days were considered as identical with mathematics, and those again with astrology and magic; so that the old chronicler, who says that Torfrida was skilled in "the mechanic art," uses the word in the same sense as does the author of the "History of Ramsey," who tells us how a certain holy bishop of St. Dunstan's party, riding down to Corfe through the forest, saw the wicked ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... 'Divine Astrology tells us,' said Mr Culpeper. 'The horse, being a martial beast that beareth man to battle, belongs naturally to the red planet Mars—the Lord of War. I would show you him, but he's too near his setting. Rats and mice, ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... all ages of ascribing connection where there is none. Thus astrology has been believed in. Before last Christmas I said I had neglected the feasts of the Church too much, and that I should probably be more prosperous if I paid more attention to them: so I hung up three pieces of ivy in my rooms on Xmas Eve. A few months afterwards I got the entail cut off ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... speak here of those who throw themselves upon fortune because they have been happy before, as if there were something permanent therein. Their argument from the past to the future has just as slight a foundation as the principles of astrology and of other kinds of divination. They overlook the fact that there is usually an ebb and flow in fortune, una marea, as Italians playing basset are wont to call it. With regard to this they make their own particular observations, which I would, nevertheless, counsel none to trust too much. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... are not, as in many other places, regarded with disrespect; they do not maintain themselves miserably by base profits; they are landed proprietors, are engaged in commerce, and even devote themselves to the study of literature, and more especially to medicine and astrology. They hold almost everywhere the commission of levying the customs duties; they are classed among the most honest people; they wear no outward mark to distinguish them from Christians, and are permitted to carry a sword and walk about with ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... the young Catholic gentleman. Sandy (Napier) was also probably his mother's medical adviser: he certainly acted as such to some members of her family. A man of fervent piety—his "knees were horny with frequent praying," says Aubrey—he was, besides, a zealous student of alchemy and astrology, a friend of Dee, of Lilly, and of Booker. Very likely Kenelm had been entrusted to Allen's care at Oxford on the recommendation of Sandy; for Allen, one of his intimates, was a serious occultist, who, according to his servant's account, ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... ear; but what use or merit 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
... the curious facts we learned at Greenwich was that astronomy was still supposed to be astrology by many in England. That a belief in astrology should survive was perhaps not remarkable, though I do not remember to have seen any evidence of it in this country. But applications received at the Royal ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... were, by their own discoveries. They stopped short. They gave way again to the primeval fear of Nature. They sank into planet-worship. They invented, it would seem, that fantastic pseudo-science of astrology, which lay for ages after as an incubus on the human intellect and conscience. They became the magicians and quacks of the old world; and mankind owed them thenceforth nothing but evil. Among the Greeks and Romans, again, those sages who dared face Nature like reasonable men, were ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of the capital there lived an old man, who had spent his life in studying black arts—alchemy, astrology, magic, and enchantment. This man found out that the gardener's son had only succeeded in marrying the Princess by the help of the genii who obeyed the ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... at any rate taught, Delsarte, Physical Culture, Dress-Reform, the Blue-glass Cure, Scientific Physiognomy, Phrenology, Cheiromancy, Astrology, Vegetarianism, Edenic Diet, Single Tax, Evolution, Mental Healing, Christian Science, Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Hypnotism. All these metamorphoses of thought had Mrs. S. Cora Grubb passed through, and was not ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Hereditary Peerage Conduct of Ministers on the Reform Bill Religion Union with Ireland Irish Church A State Persons and Things History Beauty Genius Church State Dissenters Gracefulness of Children Dogs Ideal Tory and Whig The Church Ministers and the Reform Bill Disfranchisement Genius feminine Pirates Astrology Alchemy Reform Bill Crisis John, Chap. III. Ver. 4. Dictation and Inspiration Gnosis New Testament Canon Unitarianism—Moral Philosophy Moral Law of Polarity Epidemic Disease Quarantine Harmony Intellectual Revolutions Modern Style Genius of ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... the middle ages, whose parvenu taste engendered the 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
... horoscope. A diagram of the heavens by which astrologers calculated nativities. Dryden resembled Chaucer in his belief in astrology. ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... 1660 Newton was admitted into Trinity College, Cambridge. His attention was first turned to the study of mathematics by a desire to inquire into the truth of judicial astrology, and he is said to have discovered the folly of that study by erecting a figure with the aid of one or two of the problems in Euclid. The propositions contained in Euclid he regarded as self-evident; and, without any preliminary study, he made ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... hearing of this intelligence was drunk with joy. His insolence to the British Consul-General knew no bounds. The tyrant even boasted openly, that God would give into his hands his two other enemies, the British Consul-General, and the Vice-Consul of Mourzuk! The tyrant was fond of dipping in astrology and reading fate, and he was once surprised by his ministers, reading the certain destruction of these last two of his remaining enemies in a small portion of sand. The consequence of all this open violence ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Robert learnt to know each favourite author in the dress as well as the language which carried with it the life of his period. The first edition of 'Robinson Crusoe'; the first edition of Milton's works, bought for him by his father; a treatise on astrology published twenty years after the introduction of printing; the original pamphlet 'Killing no Murder' (1559), which Carlyle borrowed for his 'Life of Cromwell'; an equally early copy of Bernard Mandeville's 'Bees'; very ancient Bibles—are some of the instances which ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... With Arabic astrology we are not here concerned; it is only worth noting in this connection as the possible source of early Christian knowledge of the Southern Cross and other stars famous in the story of exploration, such as Dante shows in the first canto of ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... that Maltravers was a wild, enthusiastic, odd being—he was, in fact, full of strange German romance and metaphysical speculations. He had once shut himself up for months to study astrology—and been even suspected of a serious hunt after the philosopher's stone; another time he had narrowly escaped with life and liberty from a frantic conspiracy of the young republicans of his university, in which, being bolder and ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 of your readers may be able to inform me of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... of God. Nay more, nature is the mirror in time of man's eternity, as man is the image in time and eternity of God. It is for this reason that the stars are the open book of the future, though they are not to be read by men aloud. Astrology is forbidden because it violates the precept of silence, which is the courtesy we pay as gentlemen to God. We may only read the stars in little children's eyes, wherein their future is concealed. The breast of Mary is the ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... projected may be traced in the three or four first chapters of the work; but farther consideration induced the author to lay his purpose aside. It appeared, on mature consideration, that astrology, though its influence was once received and admitted by Bacon himself, does not now retain influence over the general mind sufficient even to constitute the mainspring of a romance. Besides, it occurred that to do justice to such a subject would have required not only more ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... evidently associates Fortune with the planetary influences of judicial astrology. It is doubtful whether Schiller ever read Dante; but in one of his most thoughtful poems he undertakes the same defence of Fortune, making the Fortunate a ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Magnifiques," called by Moliere a minor comedy, but which may be rather considered as a piece of framework for the introduction of scenic pageantry, and which is only distinguished by some satirical shafts directed against the now obsolete folly of judicial astrology, we hasten to notice a masterpiece of Moliere's art in "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme." This piece was written to please the court and gentry, at the expense of the nouveaux riches, who, rendered wealthy by the sudden acquisition of immense fortune, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... I escape from the severities of botanical science into a maze of queer fancies, well suited to those retrospective hours when we love best what we least believe. And by the pleasant suggestion of astrology I am led on to contemplate the starry heavens, which I do in the ancient pastoral way, peopling them with mythical forms and connecting them with the seasonable changes of rustic toil. I forget for the moment all the discoveries of Copernicus and Kepler, and see eye to eye with Cleostratus of ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... Ashmole noted every trifle, even to the paring of his nails; and being as believer in astrology, and a student in the occult sciences, occasionally mentions his own superstitious observances. Thus, April 11, 1681, he notes—"I took, early in the morning, a good dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my ague ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... as astrology led to the more useful knowledge of astronomy, this influence enabled us to comprehend our nervous system, on which so many conditions of health depend, and with which ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the world has rung with the fame of Roger Bacon, formerly of this college, and of his exploits in astrology, chemistry, and metallurgy, inter alia his brazen head, of which alone the nose remains, a precious relic, and (to use the words of the excellent author of the Oxford Guide) still conspicuous over the portal, where it erects ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... demonstrate the incongruity and untenableness of a doctrine which should assign the indications of different functions, exercises and propensities of the mind to the exterior surface of the scull or the brain. This is quackery, and is to be classed with chiromancy, augury, astrology, and the rest of those schemes for discovering the future and unknown, which the restlessness and anxiety of the human mind have invented, built upon arbitrary principles, blundered upon in the dark, and having ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... bad weather comes only when the tempest has whipped them to a gallop. Even a band around the moon—which I am told is primary instruction on the coming of a storm—stirs me chiefly by its deeper mystery, as if astrology, come in from the distant stars, lifts here a warning finger. But M—— was brought up beside the sea, and she has a sailor's instinct for the weather. At the first preliminary shifting of the heavens, ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... Majesty," quavered one poor old scholar, "I was not employed as a buffoon but as a teacher of astrology!" ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... pass, I know not;* but by ancient and modern example it is evident, that no great accident befalls a city or province, but it is presaged by divination, or prodigy, or astrology, or some way or other. I shall here ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... entered upon, which task is left for those who feel so inclined. A rich reward is in store for those spiritual investigators who will follow out the paths and lines herein mapped out on Spiritual Astrology, Alchemy, and other subjects. Meditation and aspiration will open up hidden treasures that will prove a boon to Occult students, for Astrology and Alchemy are the two grand sciences that explain the why and reasons for what we see and experience on every plane of life. ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... think it was a jest. It was, that he was devoured of a long dragon; and it was expounded of a maker of sausages, that troubled him exceedingly. There are numbers of the like kind; especially if you include dreams, and predictions of astrology. But I have set down these few only, of certain credit, for example. My judgment is, that they ought all to be despised; and ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside. Though when I say despised, I mean it as for belief; for otherwise, the spreading, or ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... that he not only shared in the belief in astrology, which was then universal, but considered it one of the most important parts of "mathematics." It was looked upon with disfavour by the Church as a dangerous study; Bacon defended its use in the interests of the Church itself. He maintained, like Thomas Aquinas, the physiological influence of the ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Oxenford A riche gnof*, that *guestes held to board*, *miser *took in boarders* And of his craft he was a carpenter. With him there was dwelling a poor scholer, Had learned art, but all his fantasy Was turned for to learn astrology. He coude* a certain of conclusions *knew To deeme* by interrogations, *determine If that men asked him in certain hours, When that men should have drought or elles show'rs: Or if men asked him what shoulde fall Of everything, I ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... efforts of the Jews were not without success. The 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 his wife Sarah. Yet, strange to say, he retained ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... obligation to be just and generous. Mr. Beecher can no more succeed in reconciling science and religion, than he could in convincing the world that triangles and circles are exactly the same. There is the same relation between science and religion that there is between astronomy and astrology, between alchemy and chemistry, between orthodoxy and ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... 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 time in ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... and the World, which is in the second of the Books on Natural History. In fact, he excuses himself for this in the twelfth book of the Metaphysics, where he clearly proves himself to have followed also another opinion where he was obliged to speak of Astrology. Ptolemy, then, perceiving that the eighth sphere is moved by many movements, seeing its circle to depart from the right circle, which turns from East to West, constrained by the principles of Philosophy, which ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... just not something else. He has none of the fictitious 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, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... 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. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of your altars seem impossible; the mental climate will gradually deprive your symbols of their nourishment, and men will turn their backs on your system, not because they have confuted it, but because, like witchcraft or astrology, it has ceased to interest them. The great ship of your Church, once so stout and fair and well laden with good destinies, is become a skeleton ship; it is a phantom hulk, with warped planks and sere canvas, and you who work it are no more ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... a man of some property and standing, without any profession or regular business, but with an inclination to the occult arts, begot in him probably by the folly of old Mistress Wright—tells us how he 'came to study astrology.' 'It happened on one Sunday, 1632, as myself and a justice of peace's clerk were, before service, discoursing of many things, he chanced to say that such a person was a great scholar; nay, so learned that he could make an almanac, which to me was strange: one speech begot another, till ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Astrology, however, against which so much of the satire is directed, was not more the folly of the puritans than of others. It had, in that time, a very extensive dominion. Its predictions raised hopes and fears in minds, which ought to have rejected it with contempt. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... Nnanaji the revolving pistol I first gave him, but not without a sharp rebuke for his having had the audacity to beg a gun of me in consideration of his being a sportsman. We then went into a discourse on astrology, when the intelligent Rumanika asked me if the same sun we saw one day appeared again, or whether fresh suns came every day, and whether or not the moon made different faces, to laugh ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... very much concerned, and apt to blunder on the wrong. Now, if the answer not only is easy 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 (as Euripides ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... forms of heresy which characterized the thirteenth century—naturalism with its tendency to magic, astrology, alchemy, etc., etc., and mysticism with its dreams of beatific visions, its self-torture and its lawlessness (see Goerres, 'Die Christliche Mystik')—were due largely to Averroes. In spite of this, his commentaries ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various |
