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Quote by John Hillaby

“I have often wondered how this circumpolar stars between the Drago and the Lion came to be known as the Great Bear. The ancient Egyptians called them the Unwearied Ones or the Rowers of the Ships of Ra. I prefer the Plough or the Wain or even the Big Dipper. The name of the Septriones, the proud walkers, grips the imagination, but the Great Bear is a plain misnomer.”

Book:Journey Through Europe

Work

Journey Through Europe

This book offers a vivid account of the author's extensive travels throughout Europe, exploring diverse landscapes, historical sites, and cultural experiences. more

Author

John Hillaby

John Hillaby was an English writer known for his profound insights into history and culture. His works spanned a variety of literary genres, including historical fiction, travel literature, and biography, and were praised for their unique narrative style and attention to detail. more

“It took him half an hour to reach the little mission chapel. From his position on his back in the river he could see just the tip of the steeple, but for the most part he gazed upward at the constellations. Rudy knew his constellations, because each one of his daughters had done a science project on them and they'd spent hours lying on their backs in the middle of the Edgar Lee Masters campus looking up at the sky. As the river bent to the south, he could see Virgo and Centaurus coming into view. At first they reminded him of true beauty, and he was overwhelmed. He knew that this heart-piercing ache, however painful, was the central experience of his life and that he would have to come to terms with it. No one - not Aristotle, not Epicurus, not Siva Singh - would ever convince him otherwise. But then it occurred to him that Virgo and Centaurus were just as arbitrary as the rudimentary classification system he'd used for his books - Helen's books. There were a lot of stars left out of the constellations, and nothing to stop you from drawing the lines in different ways to create different pictures. He wanted to lift his wings and fly, but he didn't have the power. He could only let the river carry him along.”

Life River Constellations

Book:Philosophy Made Simple

Source: Philosophy Made Simple

“The sky [above Tehran] was like a star-eaten black blanket, and so far as I could read them its constellations were unfamiliar. Lawrence speaks somewhere of drawing 'strength from the depths of the universe'; Malcolm Lowry speaks about the deadness of the stars except when he looked at them with a particular girl; I had neither feeling. The founder of the Jesuits used to spend many hours under the stars; it is hard to be certain whether his first stirrings of scientific speculation or pre-scientific wonder about space and the stars in their own nature were some element in his affinity with starlight, or whether for him they were only a point of departure, but in this matter I think I am about fifty years more modern than Saint Ignatius; stars mean to me roughly what they meant to Donne's generation, a bright religious sand imposing the sense of an intrusion into human language, and arousing a certain personal thirst to be specific.”

Language Constellations Starlight Tehran Specificity Jesuits Point Of Departure Malcolm Lowry Saint Ignatius

Book:The Light Garden of the Angel King: Travels in Afghanistan with Bruce Chatwin

Source: The Light Garden of the Angel King: Travels in Afghanistan with Bruce Chatwin

“Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out towards the open sea.”

Body Death Ocean Silver Constellations Lord Of The Flies

Book:Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies