Comets Quotes
More Comets Quotes
Musicke, and moode, she loues, but loue she hates,(As curious Ladies do, their publique cates)This traine, with meteors, comets, lightenings,The dreadfull presence of our Empresse sings:Which grant for euer (ô eternall Night)Till vertue flourish in the light of light.
George Chapman— Line 398.
Damn the Solar System. Bad light; planets too distant; pestered with comets; feeble contrivance; could make a better one myself.
francis jeffrey— Sydney Smith, in a letter to Jeffrey, claimed this as his own parody of him: "If you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty, you would charm everybody; but remember my joke against you about the Moon and the Solar System;— 'Damn the solar system! bad light—planets too distant—pestered with comets—feeble contriviance;—could make a better with great ease.'" (The Review of English Studies New Series, vol. 44, pp. 430-432).
I could not find the way to God;There were too many flaming sunsFor signposts, and the fearful roadLed over wastes where millionsOf tangled comets hissed and burned—I was bewildered and I turned.
— Poem The White Moth
If you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty, you would charm everybody; but remember my joke against you about the Moon and the Solar System;—"Damn the solar system! bad light — planets too distant — pestered with comets — feeble contriviance; — could make a better with great ease."
sydney smith— As quoted in "Romantic Parodies, 1797-1831" by David A. Kent, D. R. Ewen, in The Review of English Studies, New Series, Volume 44, No. 175, (1993), pp. 430-432.
The double-sun system was relatively poor in comets; there were only a hundred billion of them.
iain banks— Chapter 5 “Kiss the Blade” section I (p. 133)
The Colonel ran ahead of me, gleeful at his ejection, and I jogged after him, trailing in his wake. I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails.
john green— Looking for Alaska, said by Miles "Pudge" Halter (2005, p. 49)
What is there in places empty of matter? and Whence is it that the sun and planets gravitate toward one another without dense matter between them? Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain? and Whence arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world? To what end are comets? and Whence is it that planets move all one and the same way in orbs concentrick, while comets move all manner of ways in orbs very excentrick? and What hinders the fixed stars from falling upon one another?
isaac newton— Query 28 : Are not all Hypotheses erroneous in which Light is supposed to consist of Pression or Motion propagated through a fluid medium?
There are certain events which to each man's life are as comets to the earth, seemingly strange and erratic portents; distinct from the ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our seasons, yet true to their own laws, potent in their own influences.
Lytton— Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What Will He Do With It? (1858), Book II, Chapter XIV.
When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
— Act II, scene 2, line 30.
It may well be on such a night of clouds and cruel colors that there is brought forth upon the earth such a portent as a respectable poet. You say you are a poet of law ; I say you are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder there were not comets and earthquakes on the night you appeared in this garden.
— G.K. Chesterton, in Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Martin Gardner The annotated Thursday: G.K. Chesterton's masterpiece, The man who was Thursday, Ignatius Press, 1999, p.38
Ye country comets, that portend No war nor princes' funeral Shining unto no other end Than to presage the grass's fall.
Andrew Marvell— Andrew Marvell, The Mower to the Glow-worm.
This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
— Isaac Newton, "General Scholium," in Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (second edition, 1713)
comets, earthquakes, volcanoes, and northern lights (in the night,) with many other extraordinary phenomena or appearances intimidate weak minds, and are by them thought to be miraculous, although they undoubtedly have their proper natural causes, which have been in a great measure discovered. Jack-with-a-lantern is a frightful appearance to some people, but not so much as the imaginary specter. But of all the scarecrows which have made human nature tremble, the devil has been chief; his family is said to be very numerous, consisting of "legions," with which he has kept our world in a terrible uproar.
ethan allen— Reason, the Only Oracle of Man: Or, A Compenduous System of Natural Religion, Ch. VI, Section III: Rare and Wonderful Phenomena no evidence of Miracles, nor are Diabolical Spirits able to effect them, or Superstitious Traditions to confirm them, nor can Ancient Miracles prove Recent Revelations (1854, pg. 67)
