Firmament Quotes

• Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence.

  Paracelsus

  Stars, Men, World

  Paracelsus (1967). “The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombast, of Hohenheim, Called Paracelsus the Great: Hermetic medicine and hermetic philosophy”

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• Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them.

  Nikola Tesla

  Stars, Thinking, Ties

  Nikola Tesla (2013). “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy, With Special References to the Harnessing of”, p.5, Simon and Schuster

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• This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o-erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.

  William Shakespeare

  Fire, Air, Space

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Light, Self Reliance

  1841 Essays: First Series,'Self-Reliance'.

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• People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon....This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13]that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.

  Martin Luther

  Moon, People, Heaven

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• How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make - leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone - we all dwell in a house of one room - the world with the firmament for its roof - and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.

  John Muir

  Nature, Men, Space

  John Muir, Linnie Marsh Wolfe (1979). “John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir”, p.321, Univ of Wisconsin Press

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• But I am constant as the Northern Star, Of whose true fixed and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament.

  William Shakespeare

  Stars, Quality, Fixed

  'Julius Caesar' (1599) act 3, sc. 1, l. 59

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• To one who has been long in city pent, ’Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven, — to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament.

  John Keats

  Sweet, Nature, Prayer

  "To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent" l. 1 (1817)

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• Among all his creatures in heaven or earth, God hath not made any like unto the sun in the firmament, the beams whereof are beautiful and pleasant, and do give comfort in all places to all things.

  John Jewel

  Beautiful, Giving, Heaven

  John Jewel (2008). “The Works of John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury: The Fourth Portion”, p.1162, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• Despair snuffs the sun from the firmament.

  Amos Bronson Alcott

  Despair, Sun, Snuff

  Amos Bronson Alcott (1877). “Table-talk”

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• As freely as the firmament embraces the world, or the sun pours forth impartially his beams, so mercy must encircle both friend and foe.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Friendship, Forgiveness, World

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• Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow.

  Paracelsus

  Inspirational, Art, Heaven

  Paracelsus, Jolande Jacobi (1951). “Selected Writings”, p.45, Princeton University Press

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• Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.

  Victor Hugo

  Stars, Men, Ducks

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• When I confront a human being as my Thou and speak the basic word I-Thou to him, then he is no thing among things nor does he consist of things. He is no longer He or She, a dot in the world grid of space and time, nor a condition to be experienced and described, a loose bundle of named qualities. Neighborless and seamless, he is Thou and fills the firmament. Not as if there were nothing but he; but everything else lives in his light.

  Martin Buber

  Light, Space, Empathy

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• Large, heavy, ragged black clouds hung like crape hammocks beneath the starry cope of the night. You would have said that they were the cobwebs of the firmament.

  Victor Hugo

  Night, Clouds, Black

  Victor Hugo, Frederic Shoberl (1834). “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”

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• The spacious firmament on high,
  And all the blue ethereal sky,
  And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
  Their great Original proclaim.

  Joseph Addison

  Blue, Sky, Shining

  'The Spectator' no. 465, 23 August 1712, 'Ode'

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• From his observations, he concluded that it [Tycho's supernova] was not some kind of comet or a fiery meteor, whether these be generated beneath the Moon or above the Moon, but that it is a star shining in the firmament itself - one that has never previously been seen before our time, in any age since the beginning of the world.

  Tycho Brahe

  Stars, Science, Moon

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• The stars were my best friends. The air was full of legends and phantoms, full of mythical and fair-tale creatures, which suddenly flew away over the roof, so that one was at one with the firmament.

  Marc Chagall

  Stars, Air, Magic

  "Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 - 1922" edited by Christoph Vitali, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, exhibition catalogue (p. 41), 1991.

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• All machinery is derived from nature, and is founded on the teaching and instruction of the revolution of the firmament.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Teaching, Revolution, Instruction

  "The Ten Books On Architecture". Book by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, Book X, Chapter I, Sec. 4, c. 15 BC.

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• Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man.

  Sam Walter Foss

  Friendship, Men, House

  Sam Walter Foss, “The House By The Side Of The Road”

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• Despotism can only exist in darkness.

  James Madison

  Darkness, Despotism

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

  James Madison

  Light, Tyrants, Political

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• Love builds up the broken wall and straightens the crooked path. Love keeps the stars in the firmament and imposes rhythm on the ocean tides. Each of us is created of it and I suspect each of us was created for it.

  Maya Angelou

  Stars, Wall, Ocean

  "Learning From Maya" by Sue Shanahan, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 4, 2014.

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• Gentlemen, the character of Washington is among the most cherished contemplations of my life. It is a fixed star in the firmament of great names, shining without twinkling or obscuration, with clear, steady, beneficent light.

  Daniel Webster

  Stars, Character, Names

  Daniel Webster (1860). “The Union Text Book: Containing Selections from the Writings of Daniel Webster, The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and Washington's Farewell Address”, p.432

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• A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Light, Self Reliance

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.41, 谷月社

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