Astronomy is a cold, desert science, with all its pompous figures,-depends a little too much on the glass-grinder, too little on the mind. 'T is of no use to show us more planets and systems. We know already what matter is, and more or less of it does not signify.
Interpretation
Emerson critiques astronomy for its reliance on instruments rather than human understanding.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson expresses his belief that astronomy, despite its grandeur and reliance on advanced tools and calculations, falls short because it does not engage the mind in a meaningful way. He suggests that merely cataloging more celestial bodies does not enhance our understanding of matter or the universe; instead, true knowledge comes from thoughtful contemplation and intellectual engagement with the subjects we study.
In practice
During a lecture on the importance of critical thinking in scientific disciplines, you might quote this to emphasize the need for intellectual engagement.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens, and then at last cease to admire worthless things.
Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.
We can't plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into the popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked, What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?
I was a wife and mother, blameless in moral life, with a deep sense of duty and a proud self-respect; it was while I was this that doubt struck me, and while I was in the guarded circle of the home, with no dream of outside work or outside liberty, that I lost all faith in Christianity.
It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.
The gods conceal from men the happiness of death, that they may endure life.
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