Astronomy
The study of the heavens: the motions, nature and order of the sun, moon, planets and stars.
Works to read
- Epitome of Copernican Astronomy by Johannes Kepler, 1617-1621 · Great Books
- New Astronomy and The Harmony of the World by Johannes Kepler, 1609-1619 · Great Books
- On the Heavens by Aristotle, c. 350 BC · Great Books
- Almagest by Claudius Ptolemy, c. 150 CE · Great Books
- Natural History: A Selection by Pliny the Elder, c. 77 CE
- A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume, 1739-1740
- Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant, 1935
- That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis, 1945
Passages
Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night
— William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1
In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state. Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate
— William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor
Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack
— John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.
— Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason
He who has seen a ghost, cannot be as if he had never seen it. The heavens had opened and closed again.
— John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens
— Edgar Allan Poe, Tales (Selection)
Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: astronomy, planets, stars, heavens. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.