astronomical contemplation Quotes

For it is obvious to everybody, I think, that this study [of astronomy] compels the soul to look upward and leads it away from things here to higher things.

Contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens, and then at last cease to admire worthless things.

Looking at the sky last night and the moon in the first fresh dark, just a few stars, bright with their cold flares, I had a little crumpled thought, 'Oh well, the moon. It's just another place like California.' One's imagination drags its feet as we are inexorably hauled into the future.

And really, the reason we think of death in celestial terms is that the visible firmament, especially at night (above our blacked-out Paris with the gaunt arches of its Boulevard Exelmans and the ceaseless Alpine gurgle of desolate latrines), is the most adequate and ever-present symbol of that vast silent explosion.

Stargazing is one of the most profoundly human things one can do. But perhaps we must more frequently tear ourselves away from the mystery and beauty of the starry heavens above, and rather inspect, admire and foster the moral law within.

There is no greater joy for me than looking at the sky on a clear night with an attention so concentrated that all my other thoughts disappear; then one can think that the stars enter into one's soul.

The coolest thing for me is the experience of floating and not feeling my weight. And hanging by a window just after sunset and watching the stars in the big black dome of the sky as the earth moves underneath.

because we are always staring at the stars, we learn the shortness of our arms.

If the man who observes the myriad stars, and considers that they and their innumerable satellites move in their serene dignity through the heavens, each swinging clear of the other's orbit-if, I say, the man who sees this cannot realise the Creator's attributes without the help of the book of Job, then his view of things is beyond my understanding.

It is noticed, that the consideration of the great periods and spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind, and an indifferenceto death.

As we looked up in silence to those distant lights, we were reminded that it was a rare imagination which first taught that the stars are worlds, and had conferred a great benefit on mankind.

The moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding places.

When we are chafed and fretted by small cares, a look at the stars will show us the littleness of our own interests.