Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes About Astronomy

• Astronomy taught us our insignificance in Nature.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Teaching, Science

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.421, Penguin

• If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Beauty, Nature

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.9, Library of America

• Astrology is astronomy brought down to Earth and applied toward the affairs of men.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Astrology, Earth

• Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Selfish, Anatomy And Physiology, Astrology

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.102, 谷月社

• The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs. He knows why the plain, or meadow of space, was strown with these flowers we call suns, and moons, and stars; why the deep is adorned with animals, with men, and gods; for, in every word he speaks he rides on them as the horses of thought.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Stars, Flower

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.192, Penguin

• Man carries the world in his head, the whole astronomy and chemistry suspended in a thought. Because the history of nature is charactered in his brain, therefore he is the prophet and discoverer of her secrets. Every known fact in natural science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was actually verified.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Science, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1491, Delphi Classics

• Religionists are clinging to little, positive, verbal, formal versions of the moral law... while the laws of the Law, the great circling truths whose only adequate symbol is the material laws, the astronomy etc. are all unobserved, and sneered at when spoken of.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Thinking, Law, Adequate

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.79, Courier Corporation

• Astronomy is a cold, desert science, with all its pompous figures,-depends a little too much on the glass-grinder, too little on the mind. 'T is of no use to show us more planets and systems. We know already what matter is, and more or less of it does not signify.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, What Matters, Glasses

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Waldo Emerson (1904). “The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”

• No one can read the history of astronomy without perceiving that Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, are not new men, or a new kind of men, but that Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empodocles, Aristorchus, Pythagorus, Oenipodes, had anticipated them.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, History, Perception

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1982). “Emerson: Selected Essays”, p.350, Penguin

• Yet things are knowable! They are knowable, because, being from one, things correspond. There is a scale: and the correspondence of heaven to earth, of matter to mind, of the part to the whole, is our guide. As there is a science of stars, called astronomy; and science of quantities, called mathematics; a science of qualities, called chemistry; so there is a science of sciences,--I call it Dialectic,--which is the Intellect discriminating the false and the true.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Knowledge, Heaven

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.534, Modern Library

• It is much better to learn the elements of geology, of botany, or ornithology and astronomy by word of mouth from a companion than dully from a book.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Learning, Science

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Waldo Emerson (1904). “The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”

• Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual astronomy, or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty gods.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Friendship, Spiritual, Stars

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1347, Delphi Classics

• The first steps in Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those first steps which the farmer, the hunter, and the sailor take,) teach that nature's dice are always loaded; that in her heaps and rubbish are concealed sure and useful results.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Teaching, Science

  Nature Discipline (p. 38)

• Nor has science sufficient humanity, so long as the naturalist overlooks the wonderful congruity which subsists between man and the world; of which he is lord, not because he is the most subtile inhabitant, but because he is its head and heart, and finds something of himself in every great and small thing, in every mountain stratum, in every new law of color, fact of astronomy, or atmospheric influence which observation or analysis lay open.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Heart, Science, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.57, Penguin

• The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow outvalues all theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of chemistry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Volcanoes, Sight

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.280, Harvard University Press

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

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Space, Mind, Dignity

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.399

• Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show where aour spoons are gone); and anatomy and physiology become phrenology and palmistry.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Selfish, Science

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.102, 谷月社

• The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Astronomy, Certain

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.9, Library of America

• The sciences, even the best,-mathematics and astronomy,-are like sportsmen, who seize whatever prey offers, even without being able to make any use of it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Use, Able

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.229, Penguin

• The narrow sectarian cannot read astronomy with impunity. The creeds of his church shrivel like dried leaves at the door of the observatory.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Doors, Church, Astronomy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2623, Delphi Classics

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