Quotes about stars (2420 quotes, page 20)

“This does not mean a meteor has fallen. This is the discovery of a star.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Watts, Jonathan. “ Chinese Human Rights Activist Liu Xiaobo Sentenced to 11 Years in Jail http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/25/china-jails-liu-xiaobo.” Guardian, December 25, 2009.
2000-09, 2009

“Newton's laws of motion and gravitation achieved their original success when applied to the solar system. The first definite evidence that they were applicable on a larger scale came from the study of binary stars towards the eighteenth century. In recent times the limitations of Newton's theory have become apparent. Even on the scale of the solar system, it has been challenged by Einstein's.”

Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

"Newton and the Stars" (10 Oct 1957)

Law , Study , Time , Success

“It is remarkable how much of the utilised information men possess has been derived from the observations of astronomers. The mechanism of the universe was known before Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, or Watt constructed a steam engine. The astronomers seem to have been the pioneers of every branch of human knowledge. The Old and the New Testament open astronomically: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen., i., I). "The wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, where is He that is born King of Jews? for we have seen His star in the east" (Matt., ii., 2). It must be remembered that the science of astronomy in one important respect differs from all other sciences. Astronomers are observers only - they ascertain causes by watching effects. They cannot interfere with or alter the causes in operation.”

William Crookes (1832–1919) British chemist and physicist

Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1898)

Men , God , Knowledge , Universe

“And when like her, oh, Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One — turn down an empty Glass!”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

The Rubaiyat (1120)

Grass

“A light is gone from yonder sky,
A star has left its sphere;
The beautiful--and do they die
In yon bright world as here?
Will that star leave a lonely place,
A darkness on the night?—
No; few will miss its lovely face,
And none think heaven less bright!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Lost Star from The Literary Souvenir, 1828
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Love , World , Beauty , Thinking

“She moves like and angel
And seven evening stars
Dance through the window
Of her universal house”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

Angelsea
Song lyrics, Catch Bull at Four (1972)

Angels , Universe , Dance , Housing

“Dicko: Oh my God, you can dance can't you. Hey look, fantastic song for you. You look wonderful. If you can't do bling on a disco night when can you? That was just a real eye opener for me. That was just a real, real joyous experience for me. What we've noticed, and certainly at the finals stage is there is the performance that defines someone and shows their true star potential. For me that was yours. That was terrific.”

Hayley Jensen (1983) Australian singer

Australian Idol, Final Performances, Final 9

God , Dance , Night

“Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars,
But I hate them worse than lepers and I'll kill them in their cars.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Revolution Blues
Song lyrics, On the Beach (1974)

Hate , Cars

“Thrown like a star in my vast sleep
I open my eyes to take a peep
To find that I was by the sea
Gazing with tranquillity. 'Twas then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Came singing songs of love…”

Donovan (1946) Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist

Hurdy Gurdy Man (1967)

Love , Sleep , Singing , Sea

“O ye by wandering tempest sown
’Neath every alien star,
Forget not whence the breath was blown
That wafted you afar!
For ye are still her ancient seed
On younger soil let fall—
Children of Britain’s island-breed,
To whom the Mother in her need
Perchance may one day call.”

William Watson (poet) (1858–1935) English poet, born 1858

England and Her Colonies http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/england-and-her-colonies/.

Children , Forgetting

“She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
Like twilights too her dusky hair,
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Stanza 1.
She Was a Phantom of Delight http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww259.html (1804)

Love , Time

“I must down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.”

John Masefield (1878–1967) English poet and writer

The first line is often misquoted as "I must go down to the seas again." and this is the wording used in the song setting by John Ireland. I disagree with this last point. The poet himself was recorded reading this and he definitely says "seas". The first line should read, 'I must down ...' not, 'I must go down ...' The original version of 1902 reads 'I must down to the seas again'. In later versions, the author inserted the word 'go'.

Source: https://poemanalysis.com/sea-fever-john-masefield-poem-analysis/
Salt-Water Ballads (1902), "Sea-Fever"

Sea

“Khan is played as a cauldron of resentment by Ricardo Montalban, and his performance is so strong that he helps illustrate a general principle involving not only Star Trek but Star Wars and all the epic serials, especially the James Bond movies: Each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/star-trek-ii-the-wrath-of-khan-1982 of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1 January 1982)
Reviews, Three star reviews

War , Strong , Help

“Despite the awfulness of what was happening, the backdrop was a scene of beauty: a clear sky, a bright moon, clearly visible stars, flat undisturbed water, and an immense liner blazing with pinholes of light.”

Steve Turner (1949) British writer

Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 142

Beauty , Light , Water

“I love you, what star do you live on?”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

Chance Meetings (1917)

Love

“We're creatures of habit. We lined up for the old Batman and Star Wars films long after they stopped being great, and we'll pay Apple the same courtesy if it loses its mojo.”

Rob Enderle (1954) American financial analyst

How many times can Apple bottle lightning? The challenges of staying on top http://digitaltrends.com/apple/rob-enderle-apple in Digital Trends (8 September 2012)

War

“There various news I heard of love and strife,
Of peace and war, health, sickness, death, and life,
Of loss and gain, of famine and of store,
Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore,
Of prodigies, and portents seen in air,
Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair,
Of turns of fortune, changes in the state,
The fall of favourites, projects of the great,
Of aid mismanagements, taxations new:
All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Source: The Temple of Fame (1711), Lines 449-458.

Love , Life , Death , War

“That's what keeps me alive, perversion and star quality.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Radio 2 Show (2007–2008)

“My grandfather Raangipi taught me the stars, but I didn't write it down like you are doing. I kept everything in my head. This is called paafu.”

Mau Piailug (1932–2010) Micronesian navigator from the Carolinian island of Satawal and a teacher of traditional, non-instrument wa…

The Last Navigator (1987)

“I would want my children to grow up and do what they wish to in a field that they choose to step in. They should not have to use the shadow of their father’s name. I think that is a bit of a downer for a movie star’s children.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Rajeev Masand

Children , Thinking

“Mark Tobey fills his canvases with elliptical, calligraphic lines, beautiful whirls that seem at first glance to be completely abstract and to come from nowhere at all except his own subjective musing. But I shall never forget how struck I was, on visiting Tobey's studio one day, to see strewn around books on astronomy and photographs of the Milky Way. I knew then that Tobey experiences the movement of the stars and solar constellations as the external pole of his encounter.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 4 : Creativity and the Encounter, p. 80

Books , Beauty , Way , Forgetting

“The soul of a poetess is all made of light, like that of the stars: it doesn’t blind the onlooker, it illuminates…”

Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet

As almas das poetisas são todas feitas de luz, como as dos astros: não ofuscam, iluminam...
Contos – À Margem dum Soneto (O Dominó Preto); quoted in Citações e Pensamentos de Florbela Espanca (2012), p. 39
Translation http://www.vidaslusofonas.pt/florbela_espanca2.htm by John D. Godinho

Soul , Light

“When the year was completed, I began to examine and compare my observations, and having pretty well satisfied myself as to the general laws of the phenomena, I then endeavored to find out the cause of them. I was already convinced that the apparent motion of the stars was not owing to the nutation of the earth's axis. The next thing that offered itself was an alteration in the direction of the plumb-line with which the instrument was constantly rectified; but this upon trial proved insufficient. Then I considered what refraction might do, but here also nothing satisfactory occurred. At length I conjectured that all the phenomena hitherto mentioned, proceeded from the progressive motion of light and the earth's annual motion in its orbit. For I perceived that, if light was propagated in time, the apparent place of a fixed object would not be the same when the eye is at rest, as when it is moving in any other direction than that of the line passing through the eye and the object; and that, when the eye is moving in different directions, the apparent place of the object would be different.”

James Bradley (1693–1762) English astronomer; Astronomer Royal

As quoted by W. S. Eichelberger, "The Distances of the Heavenly Bodies," http://www.jstor.org/stable/1639343 Science New Series, Vol. 43, No. 1110 (Apr. 7, 1916), pp. 475-483.

Law , Light , Time

“I get upset 'cause I just want to be treated the way you are
Like a star not a worry in this world thus far
But wait a minute we both need ya mother's attention
I must be crazy jealous of my own baby infant”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

Book of Rhymes
On Albums, God's Son (2002)

World , Way , Waiting , Baby

“People try to define life. You know, all the 900 different things that people have wedged in there. But in reality, life is simply the time between birth and death. That's life. To us, it is a lifetime. But somewhere out in space, it may just be a blink of an eye, that's all. Because of the earth's gravitational pull, time is being slowed down and TA-DA, you have a lifetime. But somewhere out there, it's just this blink of an eye. And in this blink of an eye, you have created complexities that rival the complexities of the universe itself. In a sense, you have outdone the stars, you have outdone the motions of planets. You have outdone the whole principle of how light travels. In your little world, you have created absolutely amazing complexities. You have taken God and you have made God mysterious. But if you could just see the beauty around you and realize the goodness that it means to be able to breathe, to be able to exist, and for somebody to be able to facilitate that for you, then God is not mysterious, God is kind and beautiful.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Anaheim, California, USA, January 30, 1993
1990s

Life , Death , God , People

“Mankind loves misterys--a hole in the ground, excites mor wonder than a star in the heavens.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

Love

“There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?”

George Borrow book Lavengro

Source: Lavengro (1851), Ch. 25

Life , Sun , Night

“Thou canst not stir a flower / Without troubling of a star.”

Francis Thompson (1859–1907) British poet

The Mistress of Vision (1913).

Flowers

“I was borne on an eagle's wing,
Till with the noon-sun perishing;
Then I stood in a world alone,
From which all other life was gone,
Whence warmth, and breath, and light were fled,
A world o'er which a curse was said:
The trees stood leafless all, and bare,
The sky spread, but no sun was there:
Night came, no stars were on her way,
Morn came without a look of day,—
As night and day shared one pale shroud,
Without a colour or a cloud.
And there were rivers, but they stood
Without a murmur on the flood,
Waveless and dark, their task was o'er,—
The sea lay silent on the shore,
Without a sign upon its breast
Save of interminable rest:
And there were palaces and halls,
But silence reign'd amid their walls,
Though crowds yet fill'd them; for no sound
Rose from the thousands gather'd round;
All wore the same white, bloodless hue,
All the same eyes of glassy blue,
Meaningless, cold, corpse-like as those
No gentle hand was near to close.
And all seem'd, as they look'd on me,
In wonder that I yet could be
A moving shape of warmth and breath
Alone amid a world of death.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Canto III
The Troubadour (1825)

Life , Death , World , Way

“On board was a crew of seven: Colonel Rick Husband; Lt. Colonel Michael Anderson; Commander Laurel Clark; Captain David Brown; Commander William McCool; Dr. Kalpana Chawla; and Ilan Ramon, a Colonel in the Israeli Air Force. These men and women assumed great risk in the service to all humanity.
In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket, and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the Earth. These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.
All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You're not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.
The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.
In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see there is comfort and hope. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
The same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth; yet we can pray that all are safely home.
May God bless the grieving families, and may God continue to bless America.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Remarks after Columbia space shuttle disaster (February 2003)

Love , Life , Women , Men

“I watch the sea and the sky; sometimes I wade in the surf and build roads in the sand. At night I study the stars.”
“You have no friends?”
“No.”
“And what of the future?”
“The future stops at ‘now’.”
“As to that, I am not so sure,” said Shimrod. “It is at best a half-truth.”
“What of that? Half a truth is better than none: do you not agree?”
“Not altogether,” said Shimrod. “I am a practical man, I try to control the shape of the ‘nows’ which lie in the offing, instead of submitting to them as they occur.”
Melancthe gave an uninterested shrug. “You are free to do as you like.” Leaning back in the divan, she looked out across the sea.
Shimrod finally spoke. “Well then: are you ‘good’ or ‘bad’?”
“I don’t know.”
Shimrod became vexed. “Talking with you is like visiting an empty house.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Melancthe considered a moment before responding. “Perhaps,” she said, “you are visiting the wrong house. Or perhaps you are the wrong visitor.”
Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Madouc (1989), Chapter 5, section 4 (p. 783)

Truth , Lie , Study , Future

“Water does not care whether you bathe in it or drown in it. The mountains do not care whether you climb them or go around them. The stars do not care whether man reaches them or not. The universe does not care whether man masters all the relationships of its forces and processes, or dies because he refuses to master them. Life continues as it uses those relationships to further its growth. It ceases when it becomes overcome by still other forces which it cannot master.”

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 188.

Life , Mountain , Universe , Water

“The English mind was like the London drawing room, a comfortable and easy spot, filled with bits and fragments of incoherent furnitures, which were never meant to go together, and could be arranged in any relation without making a whole, except by the square room. Philosophy might dispute about innate ideas till the stars died out in the sky, but about innate tastes no one, except perhaps a collie-dog, has the right to doubt; least of all the Englishman, for his tastes are his being; he drifts after them as unconsciously as a honey-bee drifts after his flowers.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Dogs , Flowers , Idea , Bee

“When I started this song I was still thirty-three
The age that Mozart died and sweet Jesus was set free
Keats and Shelley too soon finished, Charley Parker would be
And I fantasized some tragedy'd be soon curtailing me
Well just today I had my birthday
I made it thirty-four
Mere mortal, not immortal, not star-crossed anymore
I've got this problem with my aging I no longer can ignore
A tame and toothless tabby can't produce a lion's roar.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

There Only Was One Choice
Song lyrics, Dance Band on the Titanic (1977)

Age , Birthday , Problem

“I'd shoot for the moon, but I'm too busy gazing at stars.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Not Afraid"
2010s, Recovery (2010)

Business

“The CBS crew had arrived: Ed Bradley; his producer, David Gelber; and a cameraman. The 60 Minutes people had government permission to work on other stories in Beijing, but they went first to Shanghai as tourists, which gave them cover to work on the real story. Ordinary Chinese did not recognize Ed Bradley as a television star as he walked down the streets of Shanghai.”

Ed Bradley (1941–2006) News correspondent

[Troublemaker: One Man's Crusade Against China's Cruelty, 120, 0970402996, Harry Wu, ‎Hongda Harry Wu, ‎George Vecsey, 1996, Newsmax Media Inc]
About

People

“You get to define what success means to you, and find your own North Star.”

Ruben Vergara Meersohn (1991) Entrepreneur

Keynote speech at the Career Days http://posao.crna.gora.me/business-magazin/otvoreni-dani-karijere-2018/, 29 March 2018.

Success

“When I was a kid and saw Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope for the first time, it blew my mind and around the same time, I had friends who were huge fans of Star Trek and I don’t know if I was smart enough to get it, or patient enough. What I loved about Star Wars was the visceral energy of it, the clarity of it, the kind of innocence and big heart of it. Star Trek always felt a little bit more sophisticated and philosophical, debating moral dilemmas and things that were theoretically interesting, but for some reason I couldn’t get on board. It really took working with all these guys and actually working on Star Trek for me to fall in love with that.”

J. J. Abrams (1966) American film and television producer and director

Pirelli interview (2015)

Love , War , Hope , Guy

“Science Digest asked me to see the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind and write an article for them on the science it contained. I saw the picture and was appalled. I remained appalled even after a doctor’s examination had assured me that no internal organs had been shaken loose by its ridiculous soundwaves. (If you can’t be good, be loud, some say, and Close Encounters was very loud.) … Hollywood must deal with large audiences, most of whom are utterly unfamiliar with good science fiction. It has to bend to them, meet them at least half-way. Fully appreciating that, I could enjoy Planet of the Apes and Star Wars. Star Wars was entertainment for the masses and did not try to be anything more. Leave your sophistication at the door, get into the spirit, and you can have a fun ride. … Seeing a rotten picture for the special effects is like eating a tough steak for the smothered onions, or reading a bad book for the dirty parts. Optical wizardry is something a movie can do that a book can’t but it is no substitute for a story, for logic, for meaning. It is ornamentation, not substance. In fact, whenever a science fiction picture is praised overeffusively for its special effects, I know it’s a bad picture. Is that all they can find to talk about?”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"Editorial: The Reluctant Critic", in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Vol. 2, Issue 6, (12 November 1978) https://archive.org/stream/Asimovs_v02n06_1978-11-12/
General sources

War , Books , Way , Science

“She was a form of life and light
That seen, became a part of sight,
And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,
The morning-star of memory!
Yes, love indeed is light from heaven;
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Alla given,
To lift from earth our low desire.”

George Gordon Byron The Giaour

Source: The Giaour (1813), Line 1127.

Love , Life , Angels , Light

“In my career I met so many movie stars, but starting a life together and building a home goes beyond all other relationships," he explains. "I found in her a human being and a woman who would take care of my family. I found in my wife both compassion and understanding.”

Sunil Dutt (1929–2005) Hindi film actor

Quoted in Nargis-Sunil Dutt: A real life romance.
We all are one, whichever religion we belong to

Life , Family , Home , Understanding

“Those who urge an alliance with Assad cite the example of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet despot who became an ally of Western democracies against Nazi Germany. I never liked historical comparisons and like this one even less. To start with, the Western democracies did not choose Stalin as an ally; he was thrusted upon them by the turn of events. When the Second World War started Stalin was an ally of Hitler thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Soviet Union actively participated in the opening phase of the war by invading Poland from the east as the Germans came in from the West. Before that, Stalin had rendered Hitler a big service by eliminating thousands of Polish army officers in The Katyn massacre. Between September 1939 and June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin was an objective ally of Hitler. Stalin switched sides when he had no choice if he wanted to save his skin. The situation in Syria today is different. There is no alliance of democracies which, thanks to Obama’s enigmatic behavior, lack any strategy in the Middle East. Unlike Stalin, Assad has not switched sides if only because there is no side to switch to. Assad regards ISIS as a tactical ally against other armed opposition groups. This is why Russia is now focusing its air strikes against non-ISIS armed groups opposed to Assad. More importantly, Assad has none of the things that Stalin had to offer the Allies. To start with Stalin could offer the vast expanse of territory controlled by the Soviet Union and capable of swallowing countless German divisions without belching. Field Marshal von Paulus’ one-million man invasion force was but a drop in the ocean of the Soviet landmass. In contrast, Assad has no territorial depth to offer. According to the Iranian General Hossein Hamadani, who was killed in Aleppo, Assad is in nominal control of around 20 percent of the country. Stalin also had an endless supply of cannon fodder, able to ship in millions from the depths of the Urals, Central Asia and Siberia. In contrast, Assad has publicly declared he is running out of soldiers, relying on Hezbollah cannon fodder sent to him by Tehran. If Assad has managed to hang on to part of Syria, it is partly because he has an air force while his opponents do not. But even that advantage has been subject to the law of diminishing returns. Four years of bombing defenseless villages and towns has not changed the balance of power in Assad’s favor. This may be why his Russian backers decided to come and do the bombing themselves. Before, the planes were Russian, the pilots Syrian. Now both planes and pilots are Russian, underlining Assad’s increasing irrelevance. Stalin’s other card, which Assad lacks, consisted of the USSR’s immense natural resources, especially the Azerbaijan oilfields which made sure the Soviet tanks could continue to roll without running out of petrol. Assad in contrast has lost control of Syria’s oilfields and is forced to buy supplies from ISIS or smugglers operating from Turkey. There are other differences between Stalin then and Assad now. Adulated as “the Father of the Nation” Stalin had the last word on all issues. Assad is not in that position. In fact, again according to the late Hamadani in his last interview published by Iranian media, what is left of the Syrian Ba’athist regime is run by a star chamber of shadowy characters who regard Assad as nothing but a figurehead.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: No, Bashar Al-Assad is no Joseph Stalin http://english.aawsat.com/2015/10/article55345413/opinion-no-bashar-al-assad-is-no-joseph-stalin, Ashraq Al-Awsat (16 Oct, 2015).

War , World , Law , Behavior

“The Big Bang, the formation of stars and planets, the origin and evolution of life on this planet, the advent of human consciousness and the resultant evolution of cultures — this is the story, the one story, that has the potential to unite us, because it happens to be true.”

Ursula Goodenough book The Sacred Depths of Nature

Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. xv

Life

“Tempt not the stars, young man, thou canst not play
With the severity of fate.”

John Ford (dramatist) The Broken Heart

Act I, sc. iii.
The Broken Heart (c. 1625-33)

Fate

“Fear, guilt, despair, and moon-struck frenzy rush
On voluntary death: the wise and brave,
When the fierce storms of fortune round 'em roar,
Combat the billows with redoubled force:
Then, if they perish ere the port is gained,
They sink with decent pride; and from the deep
Honour retrieves them, bright as rising stars.”

Elijah Fenton (1683–1730) British poet

Act V, Scene VII, pp. 66–67
Mariamne: A Tragedy (1723)

Death , Fear , Despair

“The rudest heathen that worshipped Canopus, or the Caabah Black-Stone, he, as we saw, was superior to the horse that worshipped nothing at all! Nay there was a kind of lasting merit in that poor act of his; analogous to what is still meritorious in Poets: recognition of a certain endless divine beauty and significance in stars and all natural objects whatsoever.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Priest

Beauty , Nature , Horse

“I’m surprised that multiple personalities are so much less common in reality than in fiction: what a little disorder it would take, a distraction, a sleep, for one of our minor characters to imagine he was the star, to speak out for everyone else. And that’s what it would be, a change of billing, not of authorship. For you do not write your play—you are just the character in it called The Playwright. The real writer, you never meet.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#139
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Imagination , Reality , Sleep , Change

“The deep spaces between stars,
Fathomless as the cold shadow
His mind cast.”

R.S. Thomas (1913–2000) Welsh poet

"Wallace Stevens", p. 25
The Bread of Truth (1963)

“All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

" An Old Man's Winter Night http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-old-man-s-winter-night-2/"
1960s

“Here [in Slough], soon after my arrival, I began to lay the foundation upon which by degrees the whole structure was raised as it now stands, and the speculum being highly polished and put into the tube, I had the first view through it on February 19, 1787. …the first speculum, by a mismanagement of the person who cast it, came out thinner on the centre of the back than was intended, and on account of its weakness would not permit a good figure to be given to it. …A second mirror was cast January 26, 1788, but it cracked in cooling. February 16 we recast it, and it proved to be of a proper degree of strength. October 24 it was brought to a pretty good figure and polish, and I observed the planet Saturn with it. But not being satisfied, I continued to work upon it till August 27, 1789, when it was tried upon the fixed stars, and I found it to give a pretty sharp image. Large stars were a little affected with scattered light, owing to many remaining scratches on the mirror. August the 28th, 1789, having brought the telescope to the parallel of Saturn, I discovered a sixth satellite of that planet, and also saw the spots upon Saturn better than I had ever seen them before, so that I may date the finishing of the forty-foot telescope from that time.”

William Herschel (1738–1822) German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer

Source: Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880), Ch.4 "Life and Works".

Light , Time , Personality

“Am I not among the early risers
and the long-distance walkers? Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing,
free to everyone, and everything?”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

"Am I Not Among the Early Risers"
West Wind (1997)

Tree , Light , Water , Housing

“One cannot write about Robert E. Howard without writing about Texas. This is inevitable, and particularly so when discussing any aspect of Howard's biography. To ignore the presence of the Lone Star State in Robert E. Howard's life and writing invites, at the very least, a few wrongheaded conclusions, and at worst, abject character assassination. This doesn't keep people from plunging right in and getting it wrong every time.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

~ Mark Finn, 2006, p. 249, Blood and Thunder, ISBN 978-1-932265-21-7
About

Life , People , Time

“A thrint was master over every intelligent beast. This was the Powergiver’s primal decree, made before he made the stars. So said all of the twelve thrintun religions, though they fought insanely over other matters.”

Larry Niven book World of Ptavvs

Source: World of Ptavvs (1966), p. 85

Religion , Intelligence

“When I asked Sergio Mendes why he still called his group Brasil '66 in 1967, he said "'66 was a very good year!" That's his group and the French song from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It's not one of their better tracks. Some of the things they've done I have enjoyed tremendously, though it's getting to the point where he's had commercial success doing what he's doing, so it's now somewhere in between strong Brazilian music and quasi-rock. Joao Palma is an excellent drummer. Here they have John Pisano of the Tijuana Brass playing an amplified guitar. He is one of the few people who, on the regular amplified guitar, has really got the Brazilian thing down. He can play in the Baden Powell style, which is so compelling and so dynamic. Sergio is usually a much more melodic pianist, but here he's trying to give a hardness and vitality to the over-all commercial sound, and he comes out lacking what he usually has—his lines are usually very smoothly melodic. This has nothing to do with jazz, but I find it pleasant; on the other hand, some of the things they do, like O Pato [from Mendes' previous album], or some of the faster things, I enjoy much more. Two stars.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Reviewing Mendes' recording of Michel Legrand's '"Watch What Happens," from the album Equinox; as quoted in "Clare Fischer: Blindfold Test" http://www.mediafire.com/view/fix6ane8h54gx/Clare_Fischer#2nmgk677qzm4cnu

People , Music , Strong , Success

“Light gatherer. You fell from a star
into my lap, the soft lamp at the bedside
mirrored in you,
and now you shine like a snowgirl,
a buttercup under a chin, the wide blue yonder
you squeal at and fly in.”

Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry

The Light Gatherer, from Feminine Gospels (2002).

Light , Flying

“Put out the lights now!
Look at the Tree, the rough tree dazzled
In oriole plumes of flame,
Tinselled with twinkling frost fire, tasselled
With stars and moons”

Cecil Day Lewis (1904–1972) English poet

The Christmas Tree (1953)

Tree , Light

“The Poet's License! — 't is the right,
Within the rule of duty,
To look on all delightful things
Throughout the world of beauty. To gaze with rapture at the stars
That in the skies are glowing;
To see the gems of perfect dye
That in the woods are growing, —
And more than sage astronomer,
And more than learned florist,
To read the glorious homilies
Of Firmament and Forest.”

John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887) American poet

"The Poet's License".
The Masquerade and Other Poems (1866)

World , Beauty , Learning , Reading

“Ignite the flares, connect the phones, wind all the clocks;
the sun goes rusty like a medal in its box -
collect it from the loft. Peg out the stars,
replace the bulbs of Jupiter and Mars.
A man like that takes something with him when he dies,
but he has wept the coins that rested on his eyes,
eased out the stopper from the mouthpiece of the cave,
exhumed his own white body from the grave.”

Simon Armitage (1963) Poet, playwright, novelist

'*', from Book Of Matches.

Sun , Box

“The blessed damozel lean'd out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters still'd at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) English poet, illustrator, painter and translator

Stanza 1.
The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)

Water

“Lights of the world, and stars of human race.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

Source: The Progress of Error (1782), Line 97.

World , Light

“He who studies a text or microbes or stars must have nothing to do with his subjectivity… that is an ideal that one must try to find by a certain practice. Let us say that objectivity is a virtue, and a very difficult one to practice.”

Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) French historian and philosopher

Celui qui étudie un texte ou des microbes ou les étoiles doit se défaire de sa subjectivité... c'est là un idéal qu'il faut essayer de rejoindre par une certaine pratique. Disons que l'objectivité est une vertu, d'ailleurs très diffice à pratiquer.
La Philosophie comme manière de vivre (2001)

Study

“My first informed impression, and what I would like to achieve, I can perhaps only realize when I am impelled as in a vision. One of my figures, perhaps one from the Temptation, sang his strange song to me one night –.. We are playing hide-and-seek, we are playing hide-and-seek across a thousand seas, we gods.... when the skies are red in the middle of the night, when the skies are red at night. You cannot see us, you cannot see us but you are ourselves.... that is what makes us laugh so gaily... Stars are our eyes and nebulae our beards.... we have people's souls for our hearts. We hide ourselves and you cannot see us, which is just what we want.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Source: 1930s, On my Painting (1938), p. 19

God , People , Soul , Heart

“Why I’m telling you this is because that’s where this music comes from, that’s where my art comes from. You’re talking to a miracle; I am a miracle. I’m not halfway there, you know, dut-dut-dut-dut-da, drink a beer, hang out with my buddies, smoke a joint and get together with the band, wanna be a rock star; no. I am a very troubled individual who has been handed these obstacles in life, and overcome my fears to be honest with myself, so I can be honest with you. That’s not exploitation, it’s liberation.”

Travis Meeks (1979) American musician

[LEO Weekly, http://leoweekly.com/?q=node/7333, MUSIC ISSUE: You're talking to a miracle, 2008-07-16]

Life , Fear , Art , Music

“What I called the perplexed jungle of Paganism sprang, we may say, out of many roots: every admiration, adoration of a star or natural object, was a root or fibre of a root; but Hero-worship is the deepest root of all; the tap-root, from which in a great degree all the rest were nourished and grown.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

Nature

“Wafah Dufour bin Laden, niece of Osama bin Laden has signed a contract to star in a reality show…called Skating with the Nieces of Terrorists.”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

citation needed

Reality

“…But the truth is, I've never wanted to be a movie star - and I've been pretty clear about that.”

Ethan Hawke (1970) American actor and writer

The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/oct/08/features.fiction (2005-10-08)
2005–2009

Truth

“Love is the mystery of divine revelations!
Love is the effulgent manifestation!
Love is the spiritual fulfillment!
Love is the breath of the Holy Spirit inspired into the human spirit!
Love is the cause of the manifestation of the Truth (God) in the phenomenal world!
Love is the necessary tie proceeding from the realities of things through divine creation!
Love is the means of the most great happiness in both the material and spiritual worlds!
Love is a light of guidance in the dark night!
Love is the bond between the Creator and the creature in the inner world!
Love is the cause of development to every enlightened man!
Love is the greatest law in this vast universe of God!
Love is the one law which causeth and controleth order among the existing atoms!
Love is the universal magnetic power between the planets and stars shining in the loft firmament!
Love is the cause of unfoldment to a searching mind, of the secrets deposited in the universe by the Infinite!
Love is the spirit of life in the bountiful body of the world!
Love is the cause of the civilization of nations in this mortal world!
Love is the highest honor to every righteous nation!
The people who are confirmed therein are indeed glorified by the Supreme Concourse, the angels of heaven and the dwellers of the Kingdom of El-Abha! But if the hearts of the people become devoid of the Divine Grace — the Love of God — they wander in the desert of ignorance, descend to the depths of ruin and fall to the abyss of despair where there is no refuge! They are like insects living in the lowest plane.
O beloved of God! Be ye the manifestations of God and the lamps of guidance throughout all regions shining with the light of love and union!
How beautiful the effulgence of this light!”

`Abdu'l-Bahá (1844–1921) Son of Bahá'u'lláh and leader of the Bahá'í Faith

“O thou who art attracted by the Fragrances of God!…” in Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas (1909), p. 730 http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/TAB/tab-573.html

Love , Life , God , People

“Prospero wears a large, heavy, dark-blue cloak or gown that enfolds him like a quilted blanket… it is darkly embroidered with small wine-coloured beads and swirls of black vegetation… it has long strings and ornate tassels that trail to the ground… it is a garment that has often been worn… a little frayed and scuffed. Later it will be seen to be capable of changing colour… in seven stages comparable to the power of Prospero's magic… black, brown, dark blue, light blue, purple, dark red and fiery red… and to have a vivid lining embroidered with dazzling stars -- a lining that is only revealed in flashes as when a dark butterfly momentarily uncovers coloured underwings.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Prospero's Books

Light , Wine , Change

“It is because simplicity and vastness are both beautiful that we seek by preference simple facts and vast facts; that we take delight, now in following the giant courses of the stars, now in scrutinizing the microscope that prodigious smallness which is also a vastness, and now in seeking in geological ages the traces of a past that attracts us because of its remoteness.”

Henri Poincaré book Science and Method

C’est parce que la simplicité, parce que la grandeur est belle, que nous rechercherons de préférence les faits simples et les faits grandioses, que nous nous complairons tantôt à suivre la course gigantesque des astres, tantôt à scruter avec le microscope cette prodigieuse petitesse qui est aussi une grandeur, tantôt à rechercher dans les temps géologiques les traces d’un passé qui nous attire parce qu’il est lointain.
Part I. Ch. 1 : The Selection of Facts, p. 23
Science and Method (1908)

Age , Beauty , Past

“Youth is frank, eager, and prone to believe in the good; it looks round, and it sees flowers; it looks up and sees stars; evil appears impossible, because it does not seem to be in ourselves. It remains for after and weary years to teach us, that even the young and the innocent may be led into crime by the strong influence of temptation. Passion first, and interest afterwards, lures the feet of men into dark and crooked paths, which none in earlier and holier hours deemed they could tread. We may have been often deceived, but it is not until we ourselves begin to deceive that we dread deceit.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Literary Remains

Men , Youth , Flowers , Strong

“L. A. likes to think of Las Vegas as the populuxe mirage of Hollywood, a place where middle-class tourists look like movie stars but aren’t, spend like millionaires but aren’t.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

Thinking

“One thing is sure, O comrades, that the love
That fights to keep us rooted in the earth,
But also urges us to dare the stars,
This irresistible, this ancient power
Wedged in the soul, unshakable, is the light
That burns our roots and leaves us free for Space.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Sestina of the Space Rocket (1953)

Love , Soul , Light , Fight

“A woman who taught at Berkeley dropped in on me once and saw a book burning in the fireplace. She pointed at it in terror, and I explained that it was a crummy ghostwritten life of a movie star and that it was an act of sanitation to burn it rather than sending it out into the world which was already clogged with too many copies of it. But she said, "You shouldn’t burn books" and began to cry.”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

The New Republic, December 24, 1966

Life , Books , World , Cry

“I love the flesh. I'm a pagan. “Who are they who speak evil of the clay? The very stars are made of clay like mine!””

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

Letter to Charles Warren Stoddard (11 August 1905)

Love , Evil

“I think I invoke radical passions in people - and that is why I am such a big star!”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

People , Thinking , Passion

“The man in the street does not know a star in the sky.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance

“I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

The Indian Serenade http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/the_indian_serenade.html (1819), st. 1

Dreams , Sleep , Night

“But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause. We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic. We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's destroyers. If today we have a country not boiling in an agony of blood, like France, if now we have a united country, no longer cursed by the hell-black system of human bondage, if the American name is no longer a by-word and a hissing to a mocking earth, if the star-spangled banner floats only over free American citizens in every quarter of the land, and our country has before it a long and glorious career of justice, liberty, and civilization, we are indebted to the unselfish devotion of the noble army who rest in these honored graves all around us.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1870s, The Unknown Loyal Dead (1871)

Death , Justice , Courage , Hell

“Well, today in New York, after months of build up and anticipation, Star Jones made history and became the first person ever to get married.”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04eupdate.phtml

History , Personality

“On his neglect of being a rock star: There’s a certain discipline about being a rock star, and I don’t have it. If I was a rock star, I wouldn’t have let a photographer in here, dressed like this. I’d have been down the hairdressers. You try and get Sting to do something without 15 advisors. These boys are like Russian princes…”

Chris Rea (1951) English singer-songwriter

2015

Boy

“At MGM there was a first wave of top stars, and a second wave to replace them in case they got difficult. I was in the second line of defence, behind Myrna Loy.”

Rosalind Russell (1907–1976) actress from the United States

Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies (2001 ed): Art. Rosalind Russell p. 383

“Don't be shy you learn to fly.
And see the sun when day is done.
If only you see
Just what you are beneath a star
That came to stay one rainy day
In autumn for free.
Yes, be what you'll be.”

Nick Drake (1948–1974) British singer-songwriter

Things Behind the Sun
Pink Moon (1972)

Autumn , Learning , Sun , Flying

“The survivors lay quietly in that cratered void and watched the whitehot stars go rifling down the dark. Or slept with their alien hearts beating in the sand like pilgrims exhausted upon the face of the planet Anareta, clutched to a namelessness wheeling in the night.”

Cormac McCarthy book Blood Meridian

Source: Blood Meridian (1985), Chapter IV

Heart , Night

“The stars are alive and nights like these
were born to be sanctified by you and me.”

Mike Scott (1958) songwriter, musician

"The Pan Within"
This Is the Sea (1985)

Night

“The butler recognized me, even favoring me with a minute change in his expression. Evidently I had become a celebrity. Politicians and sex stars may cuddle up to you and it doesn’t prove a thing, but when the butlers of the world notice you, you realize that some of what you believe about yourself is true.”

George Alec Effinger book When Gravity Fails

Source: When Gravity Fails (1986), Chapter 20 (p. 270).

World , Sex , Change

“Dear beautiful one, I praise the stars for the song's end. Farewell!”

Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) British novelist and philosopher

Other texts
Source: Far Future Calling http://web.archive.org/web/20090721194935/http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/farfuturecalling.html

Beauty

“Accordingly the primordial state of things which I picture is an even distribution of protons and electrons, extremely diffuse and filling all (spherical) space, remaining nearly balanced for an exceedingly long time until its inherent instability prevails. We shall see later that the density of this distribution can be calculated; it was about one proton and electron per litre. There is no hurry for anything to begin to happen. But at last small irregular tendencies accumulate, and evolution gets under way. The first stage is the formation of condensations ultimately to become the galaxies; this, as we have seen, started off an expansion, which then automatically increased in speed until it is now manifested to us in the recession of the spiral nebulae.

As the matter drew closer together in the condensations, the various evolutionary processes followed—evolution of stars, evolution of the more complex elements, evolution of planets and life.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

pp. 56–57 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KHyV4-2EyrUC&pg=PA56
The Expanding Universe (1933)

Life , Way , Time , Speed

“And then, all of a sudden, it was as though through those dark eyes an electrical circuit had been struck. She sat fascinated. Snake-and-bird fascinated. Afterwards she could not recall the details of what he had said. She remembered only that she had been absorbed, rapt, lost, for over ten minutes by the clock. She had perceived images conjured up from the dead past: a hand trailed in clear river water, deliciously cool, while the sun smiled and a shoal of tiny fishes darted between her fingers; the crisp flesh of a ripe apple straight from the tree, so juicy it ran down her chin; grass between her bare toes, the turf like springs so that she seemed not to bear the whole of her weight on her soles but to be floating, dreamlike, in slow motion, instantly transported to the moon; the western sky painted with vast heart-tearing slapdash streaks of red below the bright steel-blue of clouds, and stars coming snap-snap into view against the eastern dark; wind gentle in her hair and on her cheeks, bearing flower perfumes, dusting her with petals; snow cold to the palm as it was shaped into a ball; laughter echoing from a dark lane where only lovers walked, not thieves and muggers; butter like an ingot of soft gold; ocean spray sharp and clean as the edge of an axe; with the same sense of safe, provided rightly used; round pebbles polychrome beside a pool; rain to which a thirsty mouth could open, distilling the taste of a continent of air... And under, and through, and in, and around all this, a conviction: “Something can be done to get that back!”
She was crying. Small tears like ants had itched their paths down her cheeks. She said, when she realized he had fallen silent, “But I never knew that! None of it! I was born and raised right here in New York!””

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

”But don’t you think you should have known it?” Austin Train inquired gently.
September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Smile , Spring , Flowers , Lovers

“Is it desired to call attention to this fact? Proclaim it upon the house-tops! Write it upon every leaf that trembles in the forest! Make it blaze from the sun at high noon and shine forth in the radiance of every star that bedecks the firmament of God. Let it echo through all the arches of heaven, and reverberate and bellow through all the deep gorges of hell, where slave catchers will be very likely to hear it. Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois, three-quarters of a mile east of the village, and he aids every fugitive that comes to his door and asks it. Thou invisible demon of slavery! Dost thou think to cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the houseless? I bid you defiance in the name of my God.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838–64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA178 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 178
Also quoted in The History of Abraham Lincoln, and the Overthrow of Slavery http://books.google.com/books?id=RW0FAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA225, by Isaac Newton Arnold
Also quoted as Yes, I do assist fugitive slaves to escape! Proclaim it upon the house-tops; write it upon every leaf that trembles in the forest; make it blaze from the sun at high noon, and shine forth in the radiance of every star that bedecks the firmament of God. Let it echo through all the arches of heaven, and reverberate and bellow through all the deep gorges of hell, where slave catchers will be very likely to hear it. Owen Lovejoy lives at Princeton, Illinois, and he aids every fugitive that comes to his door and asks it. Thou invisible demon of slavery! Dost thou think to cross my humble threshold, and forbid me to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the houseless? I bid you defiance in the name of God.
1850s, The Fanaticism of the Democratic Party (February 1859)

God , Hell , Thinking , Sun