Compasses Quotes
More Compasses Quotes
He took the golden compasses, prepared In God's eternal store, to circumscribe This universe, and all created things: One foot he centred, and the other turned Round through the vast profundity obscure, And said,'Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds This be thy just circumference,O world.'
john milton— 1665 Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.7, l.225-31.
If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul the fixt foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do.
john donne— A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, stanza 7.
Justice to others and to ourselves is the same; that we cannot define our duties by mathematical lines ruled by the square, but must fill with them the great circle traced by the compasses
albert pike— Ch. III : The Master, p. 72
Geometry... is of much assistance in architecture, and in particular it teaches us the use of the rule and compasses, by which especially we acquire readiness in making plans for buildings in their grounds, and rightly apply the square, the level, and the plummet. By means of optics... the light in buildings can be drawn from fixed quarters of the sky. ...Difficult questions involving symmetry are solved by means of geometrical theories and methods.
vitruvius— Chapter I, Sec. 4
Then again, in the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom.
vitruvius— Chapter I, Sec. 3
