On Astronomy (1800-1824)

"In astronomy the scenery is continually shifting, and the modes of language vary in proportion as this inexhaustible science makes progress in improvement, and supplies us with new theories. Ptolemy spake the language ot the people: to Copernicus we are indebted for the language of astronomy; which Tycho Brahe in some measure confounded: Kepler and Newton rectified his faults, and gave to astronomical language a superior degree of elegance and perfection. The discoveries of the present and future times will introduce in this respect farther changes. All these different modes of language will, nevertheless, continue to be always intelligible; and may always be preserved in a certain degree, and within certain limitations." (Johann H Lambert, "The System of the World", 1800)

"The system of Copernicus is, in fact, only a theory; but we have seen that astronomy can come at the truth only by carefully bringing under a review every possible hypothesis.This science, however, has made astonishing progress; by converting, at different periods apparent arrangements into such as are more conformable to what actually exista, we have left behind various theories founded in appearances, and penetrated, if not fully and demonstrably, at least in the way ot fair conjecture, even to the real and genuine order of things." (Johann H Lambert, "The System of the World", 1800)

"Astronomy and Pure Mathematics are the magnetic poles toward which the compass of my mind ever turns." (Carl Friedrich Gauss, [letter to Bolyai], 1803) 

"The present state of the system of nature is evidently a consequence of what is in the preceding moment, and if we conceive of an intelligence which at a given instant knew all the forces acting in nature and the position of every object in the universe - if endowed with a brain sufficiently vast to make all necessary calculations - could describe with a single formula the motions of the largest astronomical bodies and those of the smallest atoms. To such an intelligence, nothing would be uncertain; the future, like the past, would be an open book." (Pierre-Simon Laplace, "Essay on Probabilities", 1814)

"Astronomy is the science of the harmony of infinite expanse." (Richard Maltravers, cca. 1822)

"Little comes to us through time as a complete monument; much comes as remnants; much as techniques, as practical manual; some things because of their close affinity to man, like mathematics; other things because they are always encouraged, like astronomy and geography; other things because of man’s needs, like medicine; and finally some things, because the human being, without wanting to, continues to produce them, like music and the other fine arts." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Maxims and Reflections", 1822)