Agnes Mary Clerke Quotes

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We know nothing of what may lie beyond. Thought may wander into the void, but observation cannot follow. And where its faithful escort halts, positive science comes to a standstill.

Agnes Mary Clerke
The cardinal truth emerging from these inquiries is that of the extreme isolation of the solar system. A skiff in the midst of a vast unfurrowed ocean is not more utterly alone.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Progress is the result, not so much of sudden flights of genius, as of sustained, patient, often commonplace endeavor; and the true lesson of scientific history lies in the close connection which it discloses between the most brilliant developments of knowledge and the faithful accomplishment of his daily task by each individual thinker and worker.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Progress, then, is the law of the universe. From its present state we can obscurely argue a "has been" and a "shall be."

Agnes Mary Clerke
Spectroscopic coincidences admit of no compromise. Either they are absolute, or they are worthless.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Such a region of inquiry... where we feel that at every step the Unknown may merge into the Unknowable, has a particular and an illimitable fascination.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Custom can never blunt the wonder with which we must regard the achievement of compelling rays emanating from a source devoid of sensible magnitude through immeasurable distances, to reveal, by its distinctive qualities, the composition of that source.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Outside the solar system, the problems which demand a practical solution are all but infinite in number and extent.

Agnes Mary Clerke
The science of the nature of the heavenly bodies... is full of the audacities, the inconsistencies, the imperfections, the possibilities of youth... It promises everything; it has already performed much; it will doubtless perform much more.

Agnes Mary Clerke
The unknown, it is true, is indefinitely vast, and the rays of light which we can project into its darkness penetrate but a short way.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Theory... demands a practical test. All its data are derived from observation; and their insecurity becomes less tolerable as it advances nearer to perfection.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Cosmology is the elder sister of cosmogony.

Agnes Mary Clerke
When all the stars blaze out on a clear, moonless night, it seems as if it would be impossible to count them...

Agnes Mary Clerke
[Astronomy] is a science of hairbreadths and fractions of a second. It exists only by the rigid enforcement of arduous accuracy and unwearying diligence. Whatever secrets the universe still has in store for man will only be communicated on these terms.

Agnes Mary Clerke
It [physical astronomy] welcomes the most unpretending co-operation. There is no one "with a true eye and a faithful hand" but can do good work in watching the heavens. And not infrequently prizes of discovery which the most perfect appliances failed to grasp have fallen to the share of ignorant or ill-provided assiduity.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Comets encountering these precincts must be perplexed to decide between the two potentates claiming their allegiance, and perhaps on occasions pay their court to each in turns, throwing out tails, as they do so, in all sorts of anomalous and contradictory directions.

Agnes Mary Clerke
What has been done is little — scarcely a beginning; yet it is much in comparison with the total blank of a century past. And our knowledge will, we are easily persuaded, appear in turn the merest ignorance to those who come after us. Yet it is not to be despised, since by it we reach up groping to touch the hem of the garment of the Most High.

Agnes Mary Clerke
There is no such thing as chaos, it tacitly asserts, in the sidereal world or outside of it. For chaos is the negation of law, and law is the expression of the will of God.

Agnes Mary Clerke
What is must be studied before what was can be inferred. Precedent states remain visionary unless they can be closely linked to actual and observable conditions.

Agnes Mary Clerke
A history tells us... how we came to know it. It thus places facts before us in the natural order of their ascertainment, and narrates instead of enumerating. The story to be told leaves the marvels of imagination far behind, and requires no embellishment from literary art or high-flown phrases. Its best ornament is unvarnished truthfulness.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Access to the nebular heavens can be gained only by making the very most of the little light they send us.

Agnes Mary Clerke
An attempt to combine, in a general survey, some definite particulars of knowledge regarding our sidereal surroundings.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Observation... is the pitiless critic of theory; it detects weak points, and provokes reforms which may be the beginnings of discovery.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Thus, not merely what it can do, but the rate at which it can do it, has to be considered in estimating the value of photography as an ally in astronomy.

Agnes Mary Clerke
The planets revolved in circles because it was in their nature to do so, just as laudanum sends to sleep because it possesses a virtus dormitiva.

Agnes Mary Clerke
Is it not reasonable to think that by far the greater part is solid and dark, and that this immense globe is encompassed with a thin covering of that resplendent substance from which the sun would seem to derive the whole of his vivifying heat and energy?

Agnes Mary Clerke
Knowledge will, we are easily persuaded, appear in turn the merest ignorance to those who come after us. Yet it is not to be despised, since by it we reach up groping fingers to touch the hem of the garment of the Most High.

Agnes Mary Clerke
The astronomer has become, in the highest sense of the term, a physicist; while the physicist is bound to be something of an astronomer.

Agnes Mary Clerke
A so-called "new astronomy" has grown up by the side of the old. One aspect of its advent has been to render the science of the heavenly bodies more popular... than formerly.... It has thus become practicable to describe in simple language the most essential parts of recent astronomical discoveries.

Agnes Mary Clerke