"Astronomy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whatsoever. If any of my readers should be inclined to say to themselves: Geology may be a very pleasant study, but I have no special fancy for it. I had rather learn something of botany, astronomy, chemistry, or what not—I shall answer: By all means. Learn any branch of Natural Science you will. It matters little to me which you learn, provided you learn one at least. But bear in mind, and settle it in your hearts, that you will learn no ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... regions, brings down yearly lime enough to supply all the animals living in the Gulf of Mexico. But behind this lies a question, not so easily settled, as to the origin of the extensive deposits of limestone found at the very beginning of life upon earth. This problem brings us to the threshold of astronomy; for the base of limestone is metallic in character, susceptible therefore of fusion, and may have formed a part of the materials of our earth, even in an incandescent state, when the worlds were forming. But though this investigation as to the origin of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the various spheres may not be out of place here. According to the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, as adapted to the requirements of mediaeval belief, the earth was at the centre, and concentric with it were ten hollow spheres. In the first eight of these were placed consecutively the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the fixed ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... Duke, projector of inland navigation—L8,000 was left for the best work on the "Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation." The money was divided amongst eight persons, including Whewell, who wrote on Astronomy considered in reference to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... perplexing work, "wonderful monument of human industry, human wisdom and human folly," which we know as the Talmud. The book is compounded of all materials, an encyclopaedia of history, antiquities and chronology, a story book, a code of laws and conduct, a manual of ethics, a treatise on astronomy, and a medical handbook; sometimes indelicate, sometimes irreverent, but always completely and persistently in earnest. Its trifling frivolity, its curious prying into topics which were better left alone, the occasional beauty of its spiritual and imaginative fancies, ...
— Hebrew Literature
... purpose being pleasure. A work of Art must of course indirectly appeal to the Intellect, and a work of Science will also indirectly appeal to the Feelings; nevertheless a poem on the stars and a treatise on astronomy have distinct aims and distinct methods. But having recognised the broadly-marked differences, we are called upon to ascertain the underlying resemblances. Logic and Imagination belong equally to both. It is only because ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... it invade a region more remote than even the "Trip to the Moon," but the author here abandons his usual scrupulously scientific attitude. In order that he may escort us through the depths of immeasurable space, show us what astronomy really knows of conditions there and upon the other planets, Verne asks us to accept a situation frankly impossible. The earth and a comet are brought twice into collision without mankind in general, or even our astronomers, becoming conscious of the fact. Moreover ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... of astronomy for a long time directed to the dreams of astrology? Gassendi himself began to investigate it with that view; and when science cured him of the prejudices of superstition, he repented that he so openly declared his conversion, ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... directed by the philosophic spirit, and quickened with the life and energy of the nineteenth century, is a very different pursuit from the Archaeology of our forefathers, and has as little relation to their antiquarianism as modern Chemistry and modern Astronomy have to their former prototypes—Alchemy and Astrology. In proof of this, I may confidently appeal to the good work which Archaeology has done, and the great advances which it has struck out in different directions within the last fifty years. Within this brief period it has made ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... Astronomy and geography, two sciences so closely allied with and so essential to navigation, flourished now throughout Europe. Ortilius of Antwerp, and Gerard Mercator of Rupelmonde, were two of the greatest geographers of the sixteenth century; and ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... child! I wish you could know Astronomy by instinct; for I begin to see I've a job before me, if only to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... say which would be blasphemy. But remember, the Pope is not infallible unless he is teaching faith or morals; that is, what we believe or do in order to save our souls. If the Holy Father wrote a book on astronomy, mathematics, grammar, or even theology, he could make mistakes as other men do, because the Holy Ghost has not promised to guide him in such things. Nevertheless, whatever the Pope teaches on anything you may be ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... groping after will be laid bare. Up to the present it may be thought that little of really practical value has been proved, and to some this may suggest that the work is therefore superfluous. But, do we study astronomy for mere practical reasons? Does the seeker in this field of science imagine that he is going to derive practical results for us, in the immediate future, from his study of the heavens? It is for purely ideal reasons—and in order ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... the Universe was constructed, and Laplace had already enunciated the theory according to which the cosmic bodies were originally formed in obedience to the law of gravitation by the condensation of rotating nebulous spheres. And there were those who used these discoveries of astronomy to cast doubts upon the likelihood that the Divine attention would be concentrated upon the concerns of so tiny a speck as this planet of ours. There were others who maintained that the unbroken persistency of the order of Nature was evidence enough to shew ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... wondering, ever so long ago, what this strange Thing called a Man of Learning was, and what is it that constitutes a Scholar? For, said I, here's a man speaks five Languages and reads the Sixth, is a master of Astronomy, Geography, History, and abundance of other useful Knowledge (which I do not mention, that you may not guess at the Man, who is too Modest to desire it), and yet, they say this ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... friend once get in the seat opposite to him at table a pretty creature who cries for the moon, and insists that he don't love her because he doesn't get it for her; and in vain may he display his superior knowledge of astronomy, and prove to her that the moon is not to be got. She listens with her head on one side, and after he has talked himself quite out of breath, repeats the very same sentence she began the discussion with, without variation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... For a time—and that historically a long one—he was limited to mere observation, accepting what Nature offered, and confining intellectual action to it alone. The apparent motions of sun and stars first drew towards them the questionings of the intellect, and accordingly astronomy was the first science developed. Slowly, and with difficulty, the notion of natural forces took root in the human mind. Slowly, and with difficulty, the science of mechanics had to grow out of this notion; and slowly at last came the full application of ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... with what assurance he maintains that there is nothing new in our astronomy, nothing in the knowledge of the human body, unless perhaps, he says, the circulation of the blood. Love of his own opinion, founded on his vast self-esteem, makes him forget the discovery of the satellites of ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... longed for some nutriment more succulent and savoury. For fifteen years he lived as a Franciscan monk in the cell and cloisters of the monastery at Fontenay-le-Comte. In books, but not those of a monastic library, he found salvation; mathematics, astronomy, law, Latin, Greek consoled him during his period of uncongenial seclusion. His criminal companions—books which might be suspected of heresy—were sequestrated. The young Bishop of Maillezais—his friend Geoffroy d'Estissac, who had aided his studies—and ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... "treasures of the jewelled skies" be an offense against truth, it is not, poets would say, because of his non-conformance to the so-called facts of astronomy, but because his sense of beauty is at fault, leading him to prefer prettiness to sublimity. As for the poet's visions, of naiad and dryad, which the philosopher avers are less true than chemical and physical forces, they represent the hidden truth of beauty, which is threaded ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... The student of astronomy is often deterred from telescopic observation by the thought that in a field wherein so many have laboured, with abilities and means perhaps far surpassing those he may possess, he is little likely to reap results ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... historian, was born at Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire, in the year 1795. He was educated at the burgh school of Annan, and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh. Classics and the higher mathematics were his favourite studies; and he was more especially fond of astronomy. He was a teacher for some years after leaving the University. For a few years after this he was engaged in minor literary work; and translating from the German occupied a good deal of his time. In 1826 he married Jane Welsh, a woman of abilities only inferior ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... increased to 12 in 1804 (Date of Code Napoleon, p. 518). 4 schools of natural history, natural philosophy, and chemistry. 2 schools of mechanical and chemical arts, 1 mathematical school, 1 school of geography, history, and political economy. A fourth school of art and design. Professors of astronomy for the observatories. ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... was young; but each had the same pale, incurious air of detachment. They reminded Mary of two astronomy professors of her college days, two men who had just such an air of detachment, who always seemed to be out of their element in the daylight, always waiting for the night to come to resume the study of ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... the practicable and useful. The innumerable millions of fibres and ganglion globules in the brain are beyond calculation, and their varieties of function are beyond all descriptive power. Geography does not attempt to describe every square mile of the earth's surface, nor does astronomy presume to know all the stars. In reference to the brain, psychic students will hereafter send forth ponderous volumes of descriptive detail, for which there is no demand at present. I willingly resign that task to ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... VIII. ASTRONOMY.—Is the Moon Inhabited? By CAMILLE FLAMMARION. The various opinions that have been held in regard to the moon. The best we can do with our present telescopes. The means we possess for judging of the condition of the moon. Recent changes on the moon. Photographs of the moon and their ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... a living embodiment of the comprehensive requirements laid down by the ancients as essential to the orator. He had a knowledge of logic, ethics, astronomy, philosophy, geometry, music, and rhetoric. Little wonder, therefore, that his amazing eloquence was described as ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... Generation older than the Trojan War, and the Wars of Sesostris in Thrace and death of Ino the daughter of Cadmus a Generation older than that Expedition: I have drawn up the following Chronological Table, so as to make Chronology suit with the Course of Nature, with Astronomy, with Sacred History, with Herodotus the Father of History, and with it self; without the many repugnancies complained of by Plutarch. I do not pretend to be exact to a year: there may be Errors of five or ten years, and sometimes twenty, ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... in moral and intellectual improvements—their own town or city, like Boston, the "hub of the universe." In fact, we are about the center; our pets more knowing, and our children smarter, than can be found elsewhere. But as the study of astronomy gives ability to look upon the vast universe of thousands of worlds much larger than our own, revolving in their orbits, it develops our intellectual faculties, and enables us to view the concave appearance of the ethereal blue from a standpoint widely differing from the occupancy of the center. ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... from experiment and the use of instruments, the factors which in the hands of Galileo and his great successors in all civilized nations, destroyed and are still destroying the old mythical conception of the world. In astronomy they overthrew the catholic tenet of the geocentric constitution of the heavens; they shattered the spheres in which they were confined, opened infinite space, and peopled it with an infinite number of stars, and in the attraction ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... perhaps it was this fact that enabled him to waste money on all sorts of hobbies instead of going to his office with his little black bag and behaving generally as a "weel tappit" husband and king would do. Rudolph's hobbies were alchemy and astronomy. The chief object of the former extremely inexact science seems to have been to make gold by the synthetic process. Any charlatan who came along with a declared conviction that he could produce gold was welcomed by the King. It was for these his guests ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... Knowledge of astronomy is limited among the Manbos to the names of a few of the principal stars and constellations. The nature of the stars, moon, sun, eclipses, and kindred phenomena are all explained in mythological tales, from a belief in which no amount of reasoning can ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... up at her, said, "If I'd looked into every 'ship from Mars' astronomy has come up with in the nine years I've held this office, I'd never have had time for anything else. You can lay odds it's a wild asteroid or ...
— It's All Yours • Sam Merwin
... and Great Britain, to appreciate the fact that a vast multitude of the human race are slaughtered by incompetent cookery. Though a young woman may have taken lessons in music, and may have taken lessons in painting, and lessons in astronomy, she is not well educated unless she has taken ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... that is moved, thinketh he sitteth still and resteth, but the earth and trees do move and run themselves. Thus it goeth; we give ourselves up to our own foolish fancies and conceits. This fool (Copernicus) will turn the whole art of astronomy upside down; but the Scripture showeth and teacheth another lesson, when Joshua commandeth the sun to stand still, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... know Spanish and mathematics, ichthiology and conchology, astronomy and dancing, mineralogy and animal magnetism, and German and chemistry, and French and botany. Yes, and the use of the globes too. Can you tell me what attraction and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... The other and finer scenery is of that world, only beginning to be explored, of Science.... It is truly an exquisite pleasure to dream, after the toil of study, on the sublime abstractions of mathematics; the transcendent scenery unrolled by astronomy; the mysterious, invisible forces dimly hinted to us by physics; the new conception of the constitution of matter originated by chemistry; and then, the inestimable glimpses opened to us, in regard to the nature and destiny of man, by the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... industrial arts came in rapid succession the elements of a higher civilization. Books on almanac-making, astronomy, geography and divination were brought to Japan from Korea and China. The Chinese calendar(88) was first used in the reign of the Empress Suiko under the regency of Shotoku Taishi. This almanac was based on the lunar periods and the civil year began ...
— Japan • David Murray
... nodded wisely. "I always thought that explained it: the romance is a reaction from the algebra. I never knew a person connected with mathematics or astronomy or statistics, or any of those exact things, who didn't have a crazy streak in 'em SOMEwhere. They've got to blow off steam and be foolish to make up for putting in so much of their time at hard sense. But don't you think that I dislike Ann Apperthwaite. She's always been one of my ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... founded, two of the main forces of the intellectual world of our time had scarcely come into play,—modern literature and modern science. Science knew nothing as yet of chemistry, nothing of electricity, of geology, scarce anything of botany. In astronomy, the Copernican system was just struggling into notice, and far from being universally received. Lord Bacon, I think, was the latest author of note in the library bequeathed by John Harvard; and Lord Bacon rejected ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... that the cause which we have hitherto found to determine progress holds in these cases also. Instances might be given proving how, in Science, an advance of one division presently advances other divisions—how Astronomy has been immensely forwarded by discoveries in Optics, while other optical discoveries have initiated Microscopic Anatomy, and greatly aided the growth of Physiology—how Chemistry has indirectly increased our knowledge of Electricity, Magnetism, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... to save others from drowning. They are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, typewriting, typesetting and practical geometry, so as to draw lines, angles and circles and find their volumes and areas, but algebra, astronomy, grammar, geology, physiology, biology and metaphysics are reserved for the high schools, where every boy and girl is sent when they are fifteen years of age and kept there for three years at the expense of the government. The high school ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... or Heaven of Dante, in whose time the received system of astronomy was the Ptolemaic, consists of the Seven successive Planets according to that system, or the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; of the Eighth Sphere beyond these, or that of the Fixed Stars; of ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... peculiarities of Christianity, and having admitted, to neglect and think no more of them! "Wherefore" (might the Socinian say) "Wherefore all this costly and complicated machinery? It is like the Tychonic astronomy, encumbered and self-convicted by its own complicated relations and useless perplexities. It is so little like the simplicity of nature, it is so unworthy of the divine hand, that it even offends against those rules of propriety which we require ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... One remembered astronomy and the "measureless distances" and the showy problems, including the rapid moving of a ray of light and the long years of its travel between star and star, and smiled incredulously. Why, the stars were just above our heads, were not much higher than the flat-topped ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... most sane and vigorous thinkers of the present day[2] has justly observed: "If you take the rhyme of Mary and her little lamb, and call Mary the sun and the lamb the moon, you will achieve astonishing results, both in religion and astronomy, when you find that the lamb followed Mary ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... is that in the text and all up and down the Bible God induces us to look out toward other worlds! Bible astronomy in Genesis, in Joshua, in Job, in the Psalms, in the prophets, major and minor, in St. John's Apocalypse, practically saying, "Worlds! worlds! worlds! Get ready for them!" We have a nice little world here that we stick to, as though losing that we ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... free act of the people. In this, as in several other respects, Japan reminds us of ancient Greece. Dr. Menzies, in his "History of Religion," says: "Greece was not conquered from the East, but stirred to new life by the communication of new ideas." Free choice has made Japan reject Chinese astronomy, surgery, medicine, and jurisprudence. The early choice to admit foreigners to Japan to trade may have been made entirely through fear, but is now accepted and ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... ultimate sciences such as Chemistry or Physics cannot express their ultimate laws in terms of such vague objects as the sun, the earth, Cleopatra's Needle, or a human body. Such objects more properly belong to Astronomy, to Geology, to Engineering, to Archaeology, or to Biology. Chemistry and Physics only deal with them as exhibiting statistical complexes of the effects of their more intimate laws. In a certain sense, they only enter into Physics and ...
— The Concept of Nature - The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 • Alfred North Whitehead
... most distinguished literary member of the family was Sir Henry Savile, a learned mathematician, Fellow and Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and Provost of Eton; a munificent patron of learning, founding Professorships of Astronomy and Geography at his University; he wrote a Treatise on Roman Warfare, but his great work was a translation of the writings of St. Chrysostom, a monument of industry and learning; he was knighted by James I., and his bust is carved in stone in the quadrangle of ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... measure barometer, diameter *Micros small microscope, microbe Monos one, alone monoplane, monotone *Morphe form metamorphosis, amorphous *Neos new, young neolithic, neophyte *Neuron nerve neuralgia, neurotic Nomos law, science, astronomy, gastronomy, economy management *Onoma name anonymous, patronymic *Opsis view, sight synopsis, thanatopsis, optician *Orthos right orthopedic, orthodox *Osteon bone osteopathy, periosteum *Pais, paidos child paideutics, pedagogue, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... house and shut him inside for awhile, letting him breathe through a piece of gaspipe which had been brought along. Others wanted him to make a ten minutes' speech on "What Mackerels Have Done for Astronomy," or some subject ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... particular has the change been more marked than with respect to the general theory of the planetary and stellar worlds. A New Astronomy has come and taken the place of the old. The very rudiments of the science have to be learned as it were in a new language, and under the laws and theories of a new philosophy. Nature is considered ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... manner of his great original was judiciously imitated. Soon after this, he proceeded to give the public a specimen of his abilities in another kind, and succeeded with the greatest applause; which was his Observations on Monsieur de Serbiere's Voyage into England, written to Dr. Wren, professor of astronomy in Oxford; printed in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... admitted that maritime expeditions are less fitted to advance the progress of geology and other parts of physical science, than travels into the interior of a continent. The advancement of the natural sciences has been subordinate to that of geography and nautical astronomy. During a voyage of several years, the land but seldom presents itself to the observation of the mariner, and when, after lengthened expectation, it is descried, he often finds it stripped of its most beautiful productions. Sometimes, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... a campaign usually teaches, made himself master of some neighboring dish, a very quick interchange of good things speedily following the appropriation. It was in vain that the senior lecturer looked aghast, that the professor of astronomy frowned. The whole table, indeed, were thunderstruck, even to the poor vice-provost himself, who, albeit given to the comforts of the table, could not lift a morsel to his mouth, but muttered between his teeth, "May the devil admire me, but they're dragoons!" The first ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... are secret; none but a member can be admitted. These divines, as of old the priest of Isis and Osiris, are deeply learned; and truly their knowledge of natural history is astonishing. They are well acquainted with astronomy and botany, and keep the records and great transactions of the tribes, employing certain hieroglyphics, which they paint in the sacred lodges, and which none but their caste or ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 25, 1841 • Various
... advisable to hand over the treatment of first one and then another group of closely interconnected questions to students who would pursue them independently of research into ultimate presuppositions. This is how Geometry, Astronomy, Biology came, in ancient times, to be successively detached from general Philosophy. The separation of Psychology—the detailed study of the processes of mental life—from Philosophy hardly goes back beyond the days of our fathers, and the separation of such studies as 'sociology' ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... itself the germ of a sublime practical compromise which makes Stoicism human. It accepts the Cosmos and it obeys the Purpose; therefore there is a Cosmos, and there is a purpose in the world. Stoicism, like much of ancient thought at this period, was permeated by the new discoveries of astronomy and their formation into a coherent scientific system, which remained unshaken till the days of Copernicus. The stars, which had always moved men's wonder and even worship, were now seen and proved to be no wandering fires ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... himself, as he should, but outside himself—hence the war with what he does not understand. In the middle ages alchemy was gradually in a natural, peaceful way changing into chemistry, and astrology into astronomy; the monks did not understand, saw a conflict and fought against it. Just such a belligerent Spanish monk was ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Bards, who delivered in songs (their only history) the exploits of their heroes, and who composed those verses which contained the secrets of Druidical discipline, their principles of natural and moral philosophy, their astronomy, and the mystical rites of their religion. These verses in all probability bore a near resemblance to the Golden Verses of Pythagoras,—to those of Phocylides, Orpheus, and other remnants of the most ancient Greek poets. The Druids, even in Gaul, where ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... tell. I was only going to say that if he was to turn up in these parts, just you put the chain down—it's all square and sound now—and tell him he'll find me at The Sun." He closed the door and put the chain he had been revising on its mettle; adding as he did so, in defiance of Astronomy:—"'Tain't any so far off, The Sun." Dolly's amusement at the function of the chain, and its efficacy, was so great as to cause her aunt to rule, as a point of Law, that six times was plenty for any little girl, and that she must leave her uncle a ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... and he developed his new interest enthusiastically. Gordon had been right. He had been getting stale. Besides, astronomy was a fascinating field, and suns with their revolving planets in some respects are very like atomic systems, if you look at it ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... regions; accentuating a fictitious and harmonious anger; drying his forehead without disarranging his hair; suffocating with the emotions he evoked; displaying real tears, and with them a knowledge, not only of law, rhetoric, philosophy, but of geometry, astronomy, ethics and the fine arts; blinding his hearers with the coruscations of his erudition; stirring them with his tongue, as with the point of a sword, until, as though abruptly possessed by an access of fury, he seized the plaintiff ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... with his wife and family again we know nothing except that he had at least one son, named Lewis. We know this because he wrote a book, called A Treatise on the Astrolabe, for this little son. An astrolabe was an instrument used in astronomy to find out the distance of stars from the earth, the position of the sun and moon, the length of days, and many other things about ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the decay should be periodical only, not permanent, and that it should alternate with periods of recovery. Hence the successive wane and increase of the Moon. Padma, Purana, Swarga-Khanda, Sec. II. Rohini in Astronomy is the fourth lunar mansion, containing five stars, the principal of which is Aldebaran." WILSON, Specimens of the Hindu Theatre. Vol. I. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... in the stone carvings, we find what have usually been considered to be glyphs for several of the constellations. Numerous calculations in the codices make it clear that the Mayas had a good knowledge of astronomy. These glyphs are usually oblong in shape and three or more are arranged together end to end. We have called these the constellation bands. Various attempts have been made to identify these signs of the various constellations. Animals ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... to the Inhabitants, and then in that place, the Heat is most extreamly intense; and so those Countries are the coldest, where the Sun is farthest from being Vertical. And if there were any such place where the Sun was always Vertical, it must needs be extream hot. Now 'tis demonstrated in Astronomy, that the Sun is Vertical twice a Year only, to those which live under the Equinoctial, viz. when he enters into Aries and Libra; and all the rest of the Year he declines from them, six months Northward, and six months ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... infatuation, a painful obsession; it was rather a recreation, almost a poetic feast. As our great lyric writer put it in the preface to his volume, Les Rayons et les ombres: 'Mathematics play their part in art as well as in science. There is algebra in astronomy: astronomy is akin to poetry; there is algebra in music: ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... What has become of that brazen seat of the old gods, that paradise to which an ascending Deity might be caught up through clouds, and hidden for a moment from the eyes of his disciples? The demonstration of the simplest truths of astronomy destroyed at a blow the legends that were most significant to the early Christians by annihilating their symbolism. Well might the Church persecute Galileo for his proof of the world's mobility. Instinctively she perceived that in this one proposition was involved the principle of hostility to her ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... associations, tract and other societies had published a number of books in Chinese which they had translated from the European languages. I was at that time the custodian of two or three of these societies and had a great variety of Chinese books in my possession. I therefore sent him copies of our astronomy, geology, zoology, physiology and various other scientific books which I was at that ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... history, some of it quite indigestible by my undeveloped mind; many books of travels, mainly of a scientific character, among them voyages of discovery in the South Seas, by which my brain was dimly filled with splendour; some geography and astronomy, both of them sincerely enjoyed; much theology, which I desired to appreciate but could never get my teeth into (if I may venture to say so), and over which my eye and tongue learned to slip without penetrating, so that I would read, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... learning is a sickness," he complained. "I was always opposed to it. But you must have your will and drag my old body about with you—a- studying astronomy and numbers in Venice, poetry and all the Italian fol- de-rols in Florence, and astrology in Pisa, and God knows what in that madman country of Germany. Pish for the philosophers! I tell you, master, I, Pons, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... find the business of toy-making, or the science of child-education in a very advanced state in China—the most Asiatic country of Asia. Child's play and toy-making have been organized into a business and a science in Europe, as astronomy, which had been studied so long in Asia, was developed into a science by the Greeks. And so we find that what is taught in the kindergarten of the West is learned in the streets of the East; and the toys ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... that she wanted to know about animals already; how to feed and tend them, and make them tame and friendly. She could not love them half so much if she were obliged to worry herself learning stupid names half a yard long, which no ordinary human creature understood! Latin—Algebra—Astronomy. She glanced round the table and beheld Mary and Agnes and Susan scribbling away with unruffled composure. No sign of alarm could be traced on their calm, bun-like countenances, the longest words flowed from their pens as if such a thing as difficulty in spelling ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Artillery he was responsible for little more than the drill of the cadets and their instruction in the theory of gunnery. The tactics of artillery, as the word is understood in Europe, he was not called upon to impart. Optics, mechanics, and astronomy were his special subjects, and he seems strangely out of place in expounding their ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... use Sanskrit. They did not rest content with explaining their own teaching in Sanskrit works: they turned also to the secular sciences of the Brahma[n.]s. They have accomplished so much of importance, in grammar, in astronomy, as well as in some branches of letters, that they have won respect even from their enemies, and some of their works are still of importance to European science. In southern India, where they worked among the Dravi[d.]ian tribes, they also advanced the development ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler
... be very expert in astronomy, in geography, and in all parts of mathematical knowledge. And authors speak, in a very exaggerated strain, of their excellence in these, and in many other sciences. Some elemental knowledge I suppose they had; but I ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... was too wise to give up his present situation till a good opportunity should offer. He had, while passing along the quay, observed a house with a large wooden quadrant over the door, and on inquiry he found that a certain master-mariner, Captain Trickett, who gave lessons in astronomy and navigation, resided there. He made bold to enter, and explaining his wish to master the subjects the captain taught, soon entered into an arrangement to attend three evenings ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... particularly popular among my fellows, but I was conscious of no loneliness then. I had many things to occupy my mind, besides my regular tasks. Both natural history and botany interested me greatly, and I was privileged also to assist Sir William's investigations in the noble paths of astronomy. He had both large information and many fine thoughts on the subject, and used laughingly to say that if he were not too lazy he would write a book thereon. This was his way of saying that he had more ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... and excluding wholly from his studies all the abstruse sciences, and limiting his philosophy to those practical points which could have influence on human conduct. "He himself was always conversing about the affairs of men," is the description given of him by Xenophon. Astronomy he pronounced to be one of the divine mysteries which it was impossible to understand and madness to investigate; all that man wanted was to know enough of the heavenly bodies to serve as an index to the ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... spoken about horses as beasts of burden, and told them what was done with the wool of the sheep, they would have been quite unable to grasp my meaning, and so I should have done myself more harm than good. They had ideas of their own about astronomy; the fundamental "fact" being that the earth was perfectly flat, the sky being propped up by poles placed at the edges, and kept upright by the spirits of the departed—who, so the medicine-man said, were constantly being sent offerings ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... the other, Your science will be all the more fascinating if you temper and garnish it with literature. In truth, almost all the greater subjects of man's contemplation belong to both fields. Of subjects such as astronomy and geology, for instance, the poetry is as sublime as the science is profound. As a pretty general rule, you will perhaps find literature most engaging in youth, and science as you grow in years. But faculties for both have been given ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... countering the Grass. Don't tell me the world can go on only half alive. Look around you and notice the recession every day. Outside of your own subservient laboratories what scientific work is being done? Since Palomar and Mount Wilson and Flagstaff went what has happened in astronomy? If you pick up the shrunken pages of your Times or Tatler, do you wonder at the reason for their shrinkage or do you realize there are fewer literates in the world than there were ten ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... what he has just said, madame, for the wanderings of a madman," whispered the doctor; "he handles in this way sometimes the most difficult questions of geometry or astronomy, with an acuteness which would do honor to the most illustrious learned men. His knowledge is great. He speaks all the living languages, but he is, alas! a martyr to his thirst for erudition and pride of learning. He imagines that he has absorbed all human knowledge, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... sweep through all the zodiacal signs of the intellectual heaven. Sometimes it was in the Ram, sometimes in the Bull; one month he would be immersed in alchemy, another in poesy; one month in the Twins of astrology and astronomy; then in the Crab of German literature and metaphysics. In justice to him it must be stated that he took such studies as were immediately related to his own profession in turn with the rest, and it had been in a month of anatomical ardor ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... she is a duck or a daisy, or hinting shyly that she is his bee or his honeysuckle: in his excitement he is not quite sure which. In the novel she has been reading the hero has likened the heroine to half the vegetable kingdom. Elementary astronomy has been exhausted in his attempt to describe to her the impression her appearance leaves on him. Bond Street has been sacked in his endeavour to get it clearly home to her what different parts of her are like—her eyes, her teeth, ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... have been first discovered by occult science, that some day we shall have professors of occult science, as we already have professors of chemistry and astronomy. It is even singular that here in Paris, where we are founding chairs of Mantchu and Slave and literatures so little professable (to coin a word) as the literatures of the North (which, so far from providing lessons, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... perfection in the knowledge of one particular point is gained by withdrawing the attention from every other point. All truth and all knowledge are affiliated. The knowledge of arithmetic is increased by that of algebra, the knowledge of geography by that of astronomy, the knowledge of one language by knowing another. As no one thing in nature exists unconnected with other things, so no one item in the vast sum of human knowledge is isolated, and no person is likely ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... contrary were sacerdotal in character. As in medieval Europe, the scholars of Asia and Egypt were priests. In the temples the nature of the gods and of man were not the only subjects of discussion; mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philology and history were also studied. The successors of Berosus, a priest from Babylonia, and {32} Manetho, a priest from Heliopolis, were considered deeply versed in all intellectual disciplines as late as the ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... law. The consequence is, that those appointed to examine publications condemn and proscribe all works necessary for the diffusion of knowledge among the Spaniards. The books that have been published on mathematics, astronomy, natural philosophy and several other branches of science connected with those, are not treated with more favor." [Liorente, vol. 4, p. 420.] "The Inquisition is, perhaps, the most active cause of that intellectual death that visited ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... poets were not unlike: both of them were well-bred, well-natured, amorous, and libertine, at least in their writings—it may be also in their lives. Their studies were the same—philosophy and philology. Both of them were known in astronomy, of which Ovid's books of the Roman feasts, and Chaucer's treatise of the Astrolabe, are sufficient witnesses. But Chaucer was likewise an astrologer, as were Virgil, Horace, Persius, and Manilius. Both writ with wonderful facility and clearness: neither were great inventors; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... introduced bibliomania into this island; for when he came on his mission from Rome in the year 668 he brought with him an extensive library, containing many Greek and Latin authors, in a knowledge of which he was thoroughly initiated. Bede tells us that he was well skilled in metrical art, astronomy, arithmetic, church music, and the Greek and Latin languages.[88] At his death[89] the library of Christ Church Monastery was enriched by his valuable books, and in the time of old Lambarde some of them ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... of the aberration of light in 1725, due to James Bradley, is one of the most important in the whole domain of astronomy. That it wus unexpected there can be no doubt; and it was only by extraordinary perseverance and perspicuity that Bradley was able to explain it in 1727. Its origin is seated in attempts made to free from doubt the prevailing discordances as to whether the stars possessed ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... would like to make him out—the nephew or descendant of a famous French Admiral, educated at the University of Pavia, belonging to a family of noble birth and high social esteem in Genoa, chosen by King Rene to be the commander of naval expeditions, learned in scientific lore, in the classics, in astronomy and in cosmography, the friend and correspondent of Toscanelli and other learned scientists—we should find it hard indeed to forgive him the shifts and deceits that he practised. It is far more interesting to think of him as a common craftsman, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... himself, and for which he expects a Patent from Trinity College, Dublin; or, at any rate, from Squire Johnston, Esq., who paternizes many of the pupils; Book-keeping, by single and double entry—Geometry, Trigonometry, Stereometry, Mensuration, Navigation, Guaging, Surveying, Dialling, Astronomy, Astrology, Austerity, Fluxions, Geography, ancient and modern—Maps, the Projection of the Sphere—Algebra, the Use of the Globes, Natural and Moral Philosophy, Pneumatics, Optics, Dioptics, Catroptics, Hydraulics, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... doors are also his. Such thoroughness and ingenuity were all in Giotto's way, and they certainly suggest his active mind. The campanile series begins at the west side with the creation of man. Among the most attractive are, I think, those devoted to agriculture, with the spirited oxen, to astronomy, to architecture, to weaving, and to pottery. Giotto was even so thorough as to give one relief to the conquest of the air; and he makes Noah most satisfactorily drunk. Note also the Florentine fleur-de-lis round the base of the tower. Every fleur-de-lis in Florence is beautiful—even ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Hutton failed to greatly influence the scientific thought of his day, yet all will now agree with Lyell that 'Hutton laboured to give fixed principles to geology, as Newton had succeeded in doing to astronomy[11]'; and with Zittel that 'Hutton's Theory of the Earth is one of the masterpieces in the ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... everyone. Excuse me a minute; I see that Carpenter is doing nothing." He crossed over to the man who had been drinking coffee, but Shelton had barely time to glance at his opponent and try to think of a remark, before the little man was back. "Do you know anything about astronomy?" he asked of Shelton. "We have several very interested in astronomy; if you could talk to them a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Frenchman, Professor of Spectacular Astronomy, Camille Flammarion, affirms immortality because he has talked with departed souls who said that it was true. Yes, Monsieur, but surely you know the rule about hearsay evidence. We Anglo-Saxons are very particular about that. Your testimony is of ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... to emphasise the importance of the reforms introduced into astronomy by Kepler, it will be well to sketch briefly the history of the theories which he had to overthrow. In very early times it must have been realised that the sun and moon were continually changing their places among the stars. The day, ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... again we must plead guilty of omitting to describe many palatial residences, and several noticeable monuments, among which is one to Copernicus, the Polish founder of modern astronomy. On the same ground we pass over handsome public buildings, theatres, gardens and cemeteries, in one of which, the Evangelical Cemetery, is buried John Cockerell, to whom Belgium owes so much ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... Astronomy is the most ancient and highest branch of physics. One of our earliest and greatest efforts in this branch was the invention of the mariner's quadrant, by Godfrey, a glazier of Philadelphia. The transit of Venus, in the last century, called forth the researches of Rittenhouse, Owen, Biddle, and President ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... injurious to literature. The satirist, like a malignant Archimago, creates a false medium, through which posterity is obliged to look at his contemporaries,—a medium which so refracts and distorts their images, that it is almost out of the question to see them correctly. There is no rule, as in astronomy, by which this refraction may be allowed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... theologian is that he is forced to admit that never again has there been a time when the unification of aspiration and knowledge has been so completely realised by organised Christianity. It was not long after this time that epoch-making changes were made, first in the domain of astronomy and afterwards in other sciences. They have revolutionised human knowledge. Nor have human aspirations stayed where they were. The ideal of justice which men see to-day is different and assuredly ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... to a little gem lately published by the Hon. Mrs. WARD. One of the most admirable little works on one of the most sublime subjects that has been given to the world. The main design of the book is to show how much may be done in astronomy with ordinary powers and instruments. We have no hesitation in saying that we never saw a work of the kind that is so perfect. The illustrations are admirable, and are ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... League, but her better judgment told her it was wiser to leave that office to one who had not also to wield the authority of a teacher. She supported the League in every way that came within her province. As Camp-fire honours were given for nature study, astronomy, and geology, she took care that all had a chance to qualify in those directions; and lately, acting on a hint from Mrs. Arnold, she had made a special point of manual training. Since Christmas the studio had assumed a new importance in the school. It was ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... God." Music, by the way, is said to have been introduced into worship in imitation of thunder, and was therefore supposed to be pleasing to the Almighty. After him followed the Emperor Ti K'u, B.C. 2436-2366, who dabbled in astronomy, and "came to a knowledge of spiritual beings, which he respectfully worshipped." The Emperor Yao, B.C. 2357-2255, built a temple for the worship of God, and also caused dances to be performed for the enjoyment of God on occasions of special ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... Attraction of Gravitation is a fact that has been proved in a thousand ways, and a thousand times. All stars and suns, and all planets, satellites and comets and nebulae are subject to this universal law. Astronomy teaches us that its power extends across the vast abysses of space, and that stars situated at distances that cannot possibly be measured, are subject to this world-wide law. Some of the greatest discoveries in astronomical science were due to the operations of ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... early showed a taste for painting as well as for arithmetic and mathematics. He was apprenticed to a painter, but he also sedulously studied physics. He is said, indeed, to have made marvellous guesses at truth, in chemistry, botany, astronomy, and particularly, as helping him in his art, anatomy. He was, according to other accounts, a man of noble person, like Ghirlandajo. And one can scarcely doubt this who looks at Lionardo's portrait painted by himself, or at any engraving ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... how easily her mind ranged hither and thither! Suddenly a picture presented itself before her, without any effort on her part as pictures will, of herself in these very rooms; she had come in from a lecture, and she held a pile of books in her hand, scientific books, and books about mathematics and astronomy which she had mastered. She put them down on the table over there. It was a picture plucked from her life two or three years hence, when she was married to William; but here she ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... part of his work which was difficult) is pronounced the greatest the world has ever seen. We see the boy Lee, studying hard to sustain the illustrious name he bore, advancing in science to the great study of astronomy, becoming the intellectual credit of his surroundings, the tutor of the scholarly. We behold him clasping the sword put in his hands by the greatest unsuccessful insurrection of all past time, and, seated on his horse, smiling at ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... wife, to the mayor and corporation of the city and to the wardens and commonalty of the Mercers' Company in equal moieties in trust (inter alia) for the maintenance of seven lectures on the several subjects of Divinity, Astronomy, Music, Geometry, Law, Physic and Rhetoric. In 1596 these two corporate bodies came into possession of the property, and in the following year drew up ordinances for the regulation of the various lectures. According to the terms of Gresham's will the lectures ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... the first and most significant realization which the reading of astronomy imposes: that of the exceeding delicacy of the world's position; how, indeed, we are dependent for life, and all that now is, upon the small matter of the tilt of the poles; and that we, as men, are products, as it ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... was rendered remarkable by the transit of the planet Venus over the sun's disk, a phenomenon of great importance to astronomy; and which every-where engaged the attention of the learned ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... minor debts such as what of arithmetic, what of astronomy, what of geography, we owe to the Saracen, from Palestine we derive the faith of Europe shared (in the language of the Bidding Prayer) by all Christian people dispersed throughout the world; as to Greece we owe the rudiments ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... employment in two professions; the first, that of a watchmaker, in which though the instructions I had received were few, they were eked out and assisted by a mind fruitful in mechanical invention; the other, that of an instructor in mathematics and its practical application, geography, astronomy, land-surveying, and navigation. Neither of these was a very copious source of emolument in the obscure retreat I had chosen for myself; but, if my receipts were slender, my disbursements were still fewer. In this little town I became acquainted ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... real science, especially the women, who were in those days more studious than the men, or at least had less leisure. For instance, the legend says of Morgan le fay (or la fee), King Arthur's sister, "she was a noble clergesse (meaning that she could read and write, like the clergy), and of astronomy could she enough, for Merlin had her taught, and she learned much of egromancy (magic or necromancy); and the best work-woman she was with her hands that any man knew in any land, and she had the fairest head and the fairest hands under heaven, and shoulders well-shapen; and she had fair eloquence ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the lower valley of the Nile or in the plains of Chaldea, the pyramids of Egypt were unquestionably destined to very opposite purposes. According, to Herodotus, they were introduced by the Hyksos; and Proclus, the Platonic philosopher, connects them with the science of astronomy—a science which, he adds, the Egyptians derived from the Chaldeans. Hence we may reasonably infer that they served as well for temples for planetary worship as for observatories. Subsequently to the descent of the shepherds, ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... letter to Major Behm, governor of Kamtschatka, who resides at Bolscheretsk, and another to the commanding officer, at Petropaulowska. Mr Ismyloff seemed to have abilities that might entitle him to a higher station in life, than that in which we found him. He was tolerably well versed in astronomy, and in the most useful branches of the mathematics. I made him a present of an Hadley's octant; and though, probably, it was the first he had ever seen, he made himself acquainted, in a very short time, with most of the uses ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... mentioned, varied now and then, as the days grew longer, by the excitement of killing a bear, entrapping foxes, or shooting grouse, the men continued to pass the winter months. To the officers, higher and more intellectual enjoyments were afforded by making observations, studying astronomy, and witnessing the brilliant ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... wife often read philosophy together.[136] Fithian speaks of him as a good scholar, even in classical learning, and a remarkable one in English grammar. Frequently the gentlemen of this period spent much time in the study of such matters as astronomy, the ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... remained almost purely descriptive, until Darwin gave it a new standpoint, new problems and an altogether fresh interest and charm. The revolution thus accomplished is comparable only to that produced by the Copernican astronomy. ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... bad luck, and nothing else," burst out Fitz, heedless of her sarcastic tones. "Luke is a better sailor than I am. But he always was weak in his astronomy, and it all turned ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... North Africa. The Moors brought many new ways to the Spanish people. They spoke the Arabic language, and worshiped Mohammed instead of Christ, in churches called mosques. They taught the Spanish people algebra and the science of astronomy; they introduced a new kind of poetry, music and dancing. They brought many new kinds of trees and flowers to Spain, like the date palm, the orange and the pomegranate, and taught the people how ...
— Getting to know Spain • Dee Day
... arithmetic, euclid, algebra, mensuration, trigonometry, book-keeping, geography, grammar, spelling and dictation, composition, logic and debate, French, Latin, shorthand, history, music, and general lectures on astronomy, natural philosophy, geology, and other subjects." The simpler principles of these branches of learning were to be "rendered intelligible, and a firm foundation laid for the acquirement of future ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... monument. Here we have science forecast for thousands of years; here we have the grandest of problems in science solved, and the sublimest phenomena of religion and science crystalised, symbolising and teaching the most marvellous facts in religion, sociology, and astronomy. It is not a tomb, nor granary, nor temple, but a pillar and witness unto the Lord of hosts. Think of a few facts. 1. Its location, the centre of the land surface of the whole earth. Hence the best zero ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... his father, who was a man of thorough instruction, omitted no opportunity to consolidate this keen intelligence by serious studies in hydrography, physics, and mechanics, along with a slight tincture of botany, medicine, and astronomy. ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... now engaged at their game of astronomy," continued Mrs. Watkinson. "They have also a sort of geography cards, and a set of mathematical cards. It is a blessed discovery, the invention of these educationary games; so that even the play-time of children ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... given him and teachers provided to instruct him. He is educated in the industrial arts on the one hand, and not only in the rudiments but in the liberal arts on the other. Beyond the three r's he is instructed in geography, grammar, and history; he is taught drawing, algebra and geometry, music and astronomy and receives lessons in physiology, botany, and entomology. Matrons wait on him while he is well, and physicians and nurses attend him when he is sick. A steam laundry does his washing, and the latest modern appliances do his cooking. A ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... II. ASTRONOMY.—A Fivefold Comet.—A curious astronomical deduction; the probable division of one comet into five by the disturbing effects of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... putting a pistol to one of his ears, blew out his brains. According to Karasowski he died at Paris in 1870. The compositions he published (dances, fantasias, studies, &c.) are of no importance. He is said to have published also two books, one on Polish orthography in 1866 and one on popular astronomy in 1869. The above and all the following letters of Chopin to Fontana are in the possession of Madame Johanna Lilpop, of Warsaw, and are here translated from Karasowski's Polish edition of his biography of Chopin. Many of the letters are undated, and the dates ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... yer brains out over Latin, Greek and astronomy, when there's my amount of fun to be had? Come; a little mite of society will brighten up yer ideas. Now listen to me, lad. There's goin' to be a big ball given at the mayor's, and d'ye remimber the darlint little craythur ye met ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... the worst would have been, that the soul would have had no astronomy—no notion of ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... remarkable clearness: "Psychology is not distinguished from sciences like physics and biology, which are generally and rightly opposed to it, by a different content, in the way that, for instance, zoology is distinguished from mineralogy or astronomy. It has the same content, but considers it from a different point of view and with a different object. It is the science, not of a given part of the world, but of the whole world, considered, however, ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... Thales of Miletus. That afterward Eudoxus of Cnidus, a disciple of Plato, had traced on its surface the stars that appear in the sky, and that many years subsequently, borrowing from Eudoxus this beautiful design and representation, Aratus had illustrated it in his verses, not by any science of astronomy, but by the ornament of poetic description. He added that the figure of the globe, which displayed the motions of the sun and moon, and the five planets, or wandering stars, could not be represented by the primitive solid globe; and that in this the invention ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a man accustomed to the 'heroic couplets'; he uses the conventional 'poetic diction'; he strains after epigrammatic point in the manner of Pope, and the greater part of his poem is an elaborate argumentation to prove the immortality of man—chiefly by the argument from astronomy. But though so far accepting the old method, his success in introducing a new element marks an important change. He is elaborately and deliberately pathetic; he is always thinking of death, and calling upon ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... practically illimitable. Hence it is that from time to time we are startled and perplexed by theories which have no parallel in the contracted moral world; for the generalizations of science sweep on in ever-widening circles, and more aspiring flights, through a limitless creation. While astronomy, with its telescope, ranges beyond the known stars, and physiology, with its microscope, is subdividing infinite minutiae, we may expect that our historic centuries may be treated as inadequate counters in the history of the planet on which we are placed. We must ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... nothing appeared to him more easy; he was pleased to think I had more talent than my brother, and talent, according to his creed, was the only master-key to unlock every science. A problem in Euclid or a phrase in Pindar, a secret in astronomy or a knotty passage in the Fathers, were all riddles, with the solution of which application had nothing to do. One's mother-wit was a precious sort of necromancy, which could pierce every mystery at first sight; and all the gifts of knowledge, in his opinion, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of many injunctions to the contrary, communicated his sister's plans for him to Lord Ipsden, and affected to doubt their prudence. The bait took; Lord Ipsden wrote to his man of business, and an unexpected blow fell upon the ingenious Flucker. He was sent to school; there to learn a little astronomy, a little navigation, a little seamanship, a little manners, etc.; in the mysteries of reading and writing his sister had already perfected him by dint of "the taws." This school was a blow; but Flucker was no fool; he saw ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... presidency, Victoriano Huerta was graduated in 1875, at the age of twenty-one, and was commissioned a second lieutenant of engineers. While still a cadet at Chapultepec he distinguished himself by his predilection for scientific subjects, particularly mathematics and astronomy. During the military rebellion of Oaxaca, when General Diaz rose against President Lerdo, Lieutenant Huerta was engaged in garrison duty, and got no ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... particular professions, can be understood only by the learned; but the most ignorant may profit by their fruits. We may enjoy the comforts of a watch; we may be transported by locomotives or steamboats, although knowing nothing of mechanism and astronomy. We walk according to the laws of equilibrium, while ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... English literature is associated with the summer-house and the grape arbor, with flecks of shade and glints of light, and a sense of unmistakable privilege. There was physiology, which was scarcely work, and astronomy, which I found so exhilarating that I fell ill over it. Alas, truth compels me to add that Mathematics, with a big M and stretching on through the books of Euclid, darkened my young horizon with dull ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... You know enough astronomy to understand novae. Surely you realize it could happen again. What would you do without a technology ...
— Blessed Are the Meek • G.C. Edmondson
... approval of a lecture as improving, as informing, as devoid of anything that could call a blush into the cheek of youth, as any it had ever been his lot to hear delivered. A pretty birthday altogether, when Astronomy couldn't leave poor Small Olympia Squires and me alone, but must put an end to our loves! For, we never got over it; the threadbare Orrery outwore our mutual tenderness; the man with the wand was too much for the boy with ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... items of equipment were obtained in Berlin under the advice of Professor Encke, the Director of the Royal Observatory, whose assistant, Dr. Bruennow, came to America as Michigan's first Professor of Astronomy. ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... represented. History and chronology, geography and law, private and public correspondence, despatches from generals and proclamations of the king, philology and mathematics, natural science in the shape of lists of bears and birds, insects and stones, astronomy and astrology, theology and the pseudo-science of omens, all found a place on the shelves, as well as poems and purely literary works. Copies of deeds and contracts, of legal decisions, and even inventories of the ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... if they will come a little nearer, we will teach them that charming air from the last opera. Does a new star come out in heaven, or an old one disappear? The one will be an added glory, and the other not much missed; but they will little concern our astronomy. Expect no more rhapsodies, my friend, unless it be upon the wonderful ease with which every thing can be done without them. That we find all things pleasant, is the extent of our poetry. It is pleasant to wake; it is pleasant to sleep; it is pleasant to wake and sleep again; pleasant ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... than the simulacra of books, just books with titles that had never yet appeared on any honest book. There were twelve volumes of "The Beauties of Nature," a shelf full of "Elegant Extracts," there were volumes simply called "Poems," there were "Commentaries," there were "Travels" and "Astronomy" and the lowest and tallest shelf was full of "Music." A card-table habitually stood in front of this false repository learning, and it was only last week that Diva, prying casually round the room while Elizabeth had gone to take off her gardening-gloves, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... thought and knowledge, with language, in which Latin formed the basis, or with grammar and rhetoric, as also with the highest problems and most abstruse questions of physics, and comprised even a general knowledge of natural science and astronomy. A complete study of all these subjects was not merely requisite for learned theologians, but frequently served as an introduction to that of law, and even ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... they will soon adapt themselves to their new surroundings. Boys who are dreamy and imaginative, who early adopt a "specialist" attitude towards life, who, however ignorant they may be of everything else, cultivate a reputation for omniscience in some particular subject, such as Egyptology, astronomy, or the construction of battleships, are usually nervous boys whose symptoms will disappear at school. Where undue timidity, phobia, or habit spasm is present, the question is more difficult to decide. Every individual case must be studied as a whole, and our object should ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... normal school to a college. Together we went through the various classrooms and heard the recitations; the mathematics cultivating the reasoning powers, the geography giving correct views of the world, the history widening the vision of it, the astronomy unfolding God's love of order and truth. We heard together the lessons in language, in ethics, in mental philosophy, and saw the students taking on strength and character, whom he had watched from grade to grade, from year to year. Not only in the theological department, ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... all the patronized ones was Kalidasa. His two dramas, Sakuntala,[FN11] and Vikram and Urvasi,[FN12] have descended to our day; besides which he produced a poem on the seasons, a work on astronomy, a poetical history of the gods, and ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... any distance in the fields, and hunt the hedges and hedgerows for him. Never feeling that I could have too much of his company, I frequently made him my companion in long country walks, during which he incessantly asked for information. For the science of astronomy he evinced an early taste. When a very little boy, I began to teach him the names and positions of the principal constellations, the revolutions of the earth on its axis, and the fixity of the polar star. I believe we were the first to notice ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills |
