quotations about stars
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.
JOHN MILTON
Paradise Lost
It is a truly sublime spectacle when the stars rise and set, and as it were divide existence into two portions; the one belonging to the earthly, whilst the other alone comes forth in sublimity, pomp, and majesty. Viewed in this light, the starry heavens truly exercise a moral influence over us; and who can readily stray into the paths of immortality if he has been accustomed to live amidst such thoughts and feelings, and frequently to dwell upon them?
HUMBOLDT
attributed, Day's Collacon
There is a black star somewhere in the night
It's like a sunspot, a reminder of the light
SOUL ASYLUM
"Black Star"
The biggest, brightest stars are like the rock-stars of the galaxy. They live fast but die young.
BELINDA NICHOLSON
"For life to form on a planet it needs to orbit the right kind of star", The Conversation, December 1, 2014
The stars foreshadow not only the destiny of rulers, but of nations and all mankind.
PTOLOMY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Stars, they make me wonder where you are
Stars, up on heaven's boulevard
And if I know you at all, I know you've gone too far
So I can't look at the stars.
GRACE POTTER AND THE NOCTURNALS
"Stars"
One thousand brilliant stars punched holes in my consciousness, pricking me with longing. I could stare at the stars for hours, their infinite number and depth pulling me into a part of myself that I ignored during the day.
MAGGIE STIEFVATER
Shiver
Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.
ALFRED TENNYSON
Locksley Hall
Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone?
RANSOM RIGGS
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
I am often merry at the jests of the constellations.
Did you fancy that the stars were always serious?
Only the dull never laugh, and the stars are very bright.
ELSA BARKER
Songs of a Vagrom Angel
Surely the stars are images of love.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Festus
In the sky, shines a star, spaces
Near and far, calling out, who you are
And smiling in the night
EARTH, WIND & FIRE
"Star"
The stars refuse to come closer
the way they have other nights.
He squints harder. They just shimmer
and float farther away.
WALTER BARGEN
"Mocking", Remedies for Vertigo
Through stellar labyrinths I thrid
Mine orbit placed amid
The multiple and irised stars, or hid,
Unsolved and intricate,
In many a planet-swinging sun's estate.
Ofttimes I steal in solitary flight
Along the rim of exterior night
That grips the universe;
And then return,
Past outer footholds of sidereal light,
To where the systems gather and disperse;
And dip again into the web of things,
To watch it shift and burn,
Hearted with stars. On peaceless wings
I pierce, where deep-outstripping all surmise,
The nether heavens drop unsunned,
By stars and planets shunned.
And then I rise
Through vaulting gloom, to watch the dark
Snatch at the flame of failing suns.
CLARK ASHTON SMITH
"The Song of a Comet", The Star-Treader and Other Poems
The ignorant man takes counsel of the stars; but the wise man takes counsel of God who made the stars.
JAAFAR
attributed, Day's Collacon
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Lear
We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied
Which way please them.
JOHN WEBSTER
The Duchess of Malfi
But who can count the stars of Heaven?
Who sing their influence on this lower world?
JAMES THOMSON
The Seasons
The stars are golden fruit upon a tree
All out of reach.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Spanish Gypsy
Day's weary toil is o'er;
No worldly strife my heartfelt worship mars:
Beneath the mystery of the silent stars,
I tremble and adore.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Midnight Voice"