Maria Mitchell

I think I am a little better thinker, that I take things less upon trust, but at the same time I trust myself much less. The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power! We reach forth and strain every nerve, but we seize only a bit of the curtain that hides the infinite from us.

Why turn your eyes to your shadow, when, by looking upward, you see your rainbow in the same direction?

It is true, also, that the same individual is not the same at all times; so that between two individuals there is a mean or middle individual, and each individual has a mean or middle self, which is not the man of to-day, nor the man of yesterday, nor the man of tomorrow, but a middle man among these different selves.

There will come with the greater love of science greater love to one another. Living more nearly to Nature is living farther from the world and from its follies, but nearer to the world's people; it is to be of them, with them, and for them, and especially for their improvement. We cannot see how impartially Nature gives of her riches to all, without loving all, and helping all; and if we cannot learn through Nature's laws the certainty of spiritual truths, we can at least learn to promote spiritual growth while we are together, and live in a trusting hope of a greater growth in the future.

"I am but a woman!
For women there are undoubtedly, great difficulties in the path, but so much the more to overcome. First, no woman should say, 'I am but a woman! What more can you ask to be?
Born a woman - born with the average brain of humanity - born with more than the average heart - if you are mortal, what higher destiny could you have? No matter where you are nor what you are, you are a power - you influence is incalculable; personal influence is always underrated by the person. We are all centres of spheres - we see the portions fo the sphere above us, and we how little we affect it. We forget the part of the sphere around and before us - it extends just as far every way.

Our great idea is, of course, freedom and self-government; probably in that we are ahead of the rest of the world, although we are certainly not so much in advance as we suppose; but we are sufficietly inflated with our own greatness to let that subject take care of itself when we travel.

the ignorance of the unscientific world is enormous; the are ignorant both ways - they underrate the scientific people and they overrate them.

It is always difficult to teach the man of the people that natural phenomena belong as much to him as to scientific people.

the minute of suspense is longer than the hour of satisfaction

But we have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more we desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing. Besides learning to see, there is another art to be learned, - not to see what is not.

Nothing comes our more clearly in astronomical observations than the immense activity of the universe. 'All change, no loss, 'tis revolution all.'

And let us have truth, even if the truth be the awful denial of the good God. We must face the light and not bury our heads in the earth. I am hopeful that scientific investigation, pushed on and on, will reveal new ways in which God works, and bring to us deeper revelations of the wholly unknown.

We remember the selfishness or the wrong act that we have committed for years. It is as it should be - Memory is the police-officer of the universe.