Astar is a luminous sphere ofplasma held together by its owngravity. The nearest star toEarth is theSun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth during the night, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points in the sky due to their immense distance from Earth. Historically, the most prominent stars were grouped intoconstellations andasterisms, the brightest of which gained proper names. Astronomers have assembledstar catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardizedstellar designations. However, most of the stars in theUniverse, including all stars outside ourgalaxy, theMilky Way, are invisible to the naked eye from Earth. Indeed, most are invisible from Earth even through the most powerfultelescopes.
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.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance.
Timothy Ferris,Seeing in the Dark (2002), quoting an anonymous astronomer's mnemonic.
Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars — mere globs of gasatoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desertnight, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches myimagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-oldlight. A vast pattern — of which I am a part... What is the pattern, or themeaning, or thewhy? It does not do harm to themystery toknow a little about it. For far more marvelous is thetruth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do thepoets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak ofJupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
The stars winked down their cryptic morse, and he had no key to their cipher.
Ian Fleming,Live and Let Die (1954), Chapter 17,The Undertaker's Wind
For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream in the same simple way as I dream about the black dots representing towns and villages on a map.
Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo, as quoted inWindows of the Soul : Experiencing God in New Ways (1996) by Ken Gire, p. 91.
Those who see the great God in the sun, moon, stars, earth, air, fire, and water, and always meditate on Him only, get success in life and are the true devotees.
You know it's never too late to shoot for the stars regardless of who you are, so do whatever it takes 'cause you can't rewind a moment in this life ~Nickelback
You know it's never too late to shoot for the stars regardless of who you are, so do whatever it takes 'cause you can't rewind a moment in this life
The night is calm and cloudless, And still as still can be, And the stars come forth to listen To the music of the sea. They gather, and gather, and gather, Until they crowd the sky, And listen, in breathless silence, To the solemn litany.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean-bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
Brightest seraph, tell In which of all these shining orbs hath man His fixed seat, or fixed seat hath none, But all these shining orbs his choice to dwell.
Now glowed the firmament With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
The stars glittered like chips of ice, blue-white, colder than the air. There was some comfort in the thought that they would still shine long after the human world was done.
Alexander Pope,Moral Essays (1731-35), Epistle III, line 282.
"I thought you understood," he said. "The world is your teacher. It will be all around you. Theocean and thewind and the stars and themoon will all teach you many things."
Jane Roberts,Emir's Education In The Proper Use of Magical Powers (1979) p. 10.
The nitrogen in ourDNA, the calcium in our teeth, theiron in ourblood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.
Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of brightgold: There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like anangel sings, Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins: Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Keen winds of cloud and vaporous drift Disrobe yon star, as ghosts that lift A snowy curtain from its place, To scan a pillow’d beauty’s face.They see her slumbering splendours lie Bedded on blue unfathom’d sky. And swoon for love and deep delight, And stillness falls on all the night.
You know, one of the signs that thesecond coming, is that the stars will fall out of thesky and land onEarth. To even write that means you don’t know what those things are. You have no concept of what the actual universe is. So everybody who tried to make proclamations about the physicaluniverse based onBible passages got the wrong answer.
The twilight hours, likebirds, flew by, As lightly and as free; Ten thousand stars were in the sky, Ten thousand on the sea; For every wave with dimpled face, That leaped upon the air, Had caught a star in its embrace, And held it trembling there.
Amelia B. Welby, "Musings", stanza 4, inPoems (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1860), p. 29.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
As man loses touch with his 'inner being', his instinctive depths, he finds himself trapped in the world ofconsciousness, that is to say,in the world of other people. Any poet knows this truth; when other people sicken him, he turns to hidden resources ofpower inside himself, and he knows then that other people don't matter a damn. He knows the 'secret life' inside him is the reality; other people are mere shadows in comparison. but the 'shadows' themselves cling to one another. 'Man is a politicalanimal', saidAristotle, telling one of the greatest lies in human history. Man has more in common with the hills, or with the stars, than with other men.
When these celestial animals burst into view, I was awed by their beauty. But when they became so strongly evident (as they quickly did) that I could no longer dismiss them by an act of will, I began to feel as frightened of them as I was of falling into that midnight abyss over which they writhed; yet this was not a simple physical and instinctive fear like the other, but rather a sort ofphilosophical horror at the thought of acosmos in which rude pictures of beasts and monsters had been painted with flaming suns.
Hence Heaven looks down on earth with all her eyes.
Edward Young,Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VII, line 1,103.
One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine; And light us deep into the Deity; How boundless in magnificence and might.
Edward Young,Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IX, line 728.
Who rounded in his palm these spacious orbs * * * * * * Numerous as gliterringgems of morning dew, Or sparks from populous cities in a blaze, And set the bosom of old night on fire.
Edward Young,Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IX, line 1,260.
The stars blazed like the love of God, cold and distant.
The spacious firmament on nigh, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim. Forever singing, as they shine, The hand that made us is divine.
The sad and solemn night Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; The glorious host of light Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.
The number is certainly the cause. The apparent disorder augments the grandeur, for the appearance of care is highly contrary to our ideas of magnificence. Besides, the stars lie in such apparent confusion, as makes it impossible on ordinary occasions to reckon them. This gives them the advantage of a sort of infinity.
Edmund Burke,On the Sublime and the Beautiful,Magnificence.
Why, who shall talk of shrines, of sceptres riven? It is too sad to think on what we are, When from its height afar A world sinks thus; and yon majestic Heaven Shines not the less for that one vanish'd star!
Wide are the meadows of night And daisies are shining there, Tossing their lovely dews, Lustrous and fair; And through these sweet fields go, Wanderers amid the stars— Venus,Mercury,Uranus,Neptune, Saturn,Jupiter,Mars.
You meaner beauties of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes More by your number than your light; You common people of the skies,— What are you when the moon shall rise?
SirHenry Wotton,On His Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia ("Sun" in some editions).
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return?
Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day.Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time.
So Hector spake; and Trojans roar’d applause; Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke, And each beside his chariot bound his own; And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine And bread from out the houses brought, and heap’d Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain Roll’d the rich vapor far into the heaven. And these all night upon the bridge of war Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed: As when in heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart: So many a fire between the ships and stream Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, A thousand on the plain; and close by each Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire; And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds, Fixt by their cars, waited the golden dawn.
Homer,Iliad, VIII, 542-561. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Trojan Camp-fires", Cornhill Magazine, 8 (December 1863);Works, 3 (1872)
So Hector...] So Hector said, and sea-like roar’d his host; bridge of war] ridge of war And eating...] (a) And champing golden grain, the horses stood / Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn. (b) And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds / Stood by their cars, waiting the thronèd morn.
