On Astronomy (-1499)

"Astronomy compels the soul to look up upward and leads us from this world to another." (Plato, cca. 400 BC)

"In astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use." (Plato, cca. 400 BC)

"At the Egyptian city of Naucratis there was a famous old god whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis was sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters." (Plato, cca. 400 BC)

"From astronomy we find the east, west, south, and north, as well as the theory of the heavens, the equinox, solstice, and courses of the stars. If one has no knowledge of these matters, he will not be able to have any comprehension of the theory of sundials." (Vitruvius, "De architectura" ["The Ten Books On Architecture"], cca. 15BC) 

"Let him [who would be an architect] be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens." (Vitruvius, "De architectura" ["The Ten Books On Architecture"], cca. 15BC) 

"Mathematical science […] has these divisions: arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy. Arithmetic is the discipline of absolute numerable quantity. Music is the discipline which treats of numbers in their relation to those things which are found in sound." (Cassiodorus, cca. 6th century)

"More evidently still astronomy attains through arithmetic the investigations that pertain to it, not alone because it is later than geometry in origin - for motion naturally comes after rest - nor because the motions of the stars have a perfectly melodious harmony, but also because risings, settings, progressions, retrogressions, increases, and all sorts of phases are governed by numerical cycles and quantities. So then we have rightly undertaken first the systematic treatment of this, as the science naturally prior, more honorable, and more venerable, and, as it were, mother and nurse of the rest; and here we will take our start for the sake of clearness." (Nicomachus of Gerasa," Arithmetic", cca. 100 AD)

"Two other sciences in the same way will accurately treat of 'size': geometry, the part that abides and is at rest, [and] astronomy, that which moves and revolves." (Nicomachus of Gerasa," Arithmetic", cca. 100 AD)

 "Astronomy itself is a venerable science, and might become a stepping stone to something more august, a science which I think is a convenient passage to mystical theology, for the happy body of heaven has matter underneath it, and its motion has seemed to the leaders in philosophy to be an imitation of mind. It proceeds to its demonstrations in no uncertain way, for it uses as its servants geometry and arithmetic, which it would not be improper to call a fixed standard of truth." (Synesius, "On an Astrolabe", cca. 5th century)