Robert Stawell Ball Quotes

8 Sourced Quotes

Man is a creature adapted for life under circumstances which are very narrowly limited. A few degrees of temperature more or less, a slight variation in the composition of air, the precise suitability of food, makes all the difference between health and sickness; between life and death.

Robert Stawell Ball
The problem that first demands solution is to discover the disruptive agent which would be potent enough to rip the Cloghvorra Stone from its parent bed, to bear it down the valley for miles, and to cast it on the mountain side.

Robert Stawell Ball
The intrinsic brightness of the Sun is fully 5,000 times as great as if the whole surface were formed of the molten steel just issuing from the Bessemer converter.

Robert Stawell Ball
The genuine student of Nature loves to get to the heart of a great problem like this; he loves to be able to follow it, not through mere formulae or abstract principles, but so as to be able to visualize its truth and feel its certainty.

Robert Stawell Ball
The planets are all members of the great family dependent on the sun. Venus and the earth may be considered the pair of twins, alike in size and weight. Mercury and Mars are the babies of the system. The big brothers are Jupiter and Saturn.

Robert Stawell Ball
We have reached a point where man's intellect begins to fail to yield him anymore light, and where his imagination has succumbed in the endeavor to realise even the knowledge he has gained.

Robert Stawell Ball
The lover of nature turns to admire the sunset, as every lover of nature will. In the golden glory of the west a beauteous gem is seen to glitter; it is the evening star — the planet Venus... All the heavenly host — even Sirius and Jupiter — must pale before the splendid lustre of Venus, the unrivalled queen of the firmament.

Robert Stawell Ball
"The Story of the Heavens" is... indeed a wondrous story to narrate; and could we tell it adequately, it would prove of boundless interest and of exquisite beauty. It leads to the contemplation of the mightiest efforts of nature and the greatest achievements of human genius.

Robert Stawell Ball