“Her calculations have always held the utmost accuracy, but mathematics alone will not be enough to guide her; she must learn to trust in chance and, if need be, in accident.”
Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter
“What has been his cause for searching the heavens day and night, for testing the limit of his reach hour by hour like a man trapped inside an expanding balloon? The reasons were as various as the days they consumed: to grasp the workings of the universe, to find something more beyond earth’s fretful compass, to put his name to a discovery and secure fame’s immortality, to be able to point to a map and proclaim simply: here I am.”
Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter
“Each new scientific fact gives rise to new uncertainties, and every pattern of starlight holds both a record and a prophecy.”
Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter
“The heavens are too immense, too beautiful and varied, to fit into the mind of any one deity; the murmured creeds of fathers and sons are no match for the astronomer’s gasp.”
Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter
“Nothing in heaven or earth is content to be alone, and so there must always be something more. The universe is governed by a principle no more complicated than this: that a solitary body will forever attract another to itself.”
Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter
“It is one of the great blessings of youth, this guiltlessness, the source of gentle sleep and peaceful days.”
Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter
“Wisdom tolerates blustered opinions, the better to dismiss them later with discovery.”
Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter
“It is only the sudden and unpredictable appearance of comets that spoils the immutable celestial sphere.”
Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter
“The basis of English law is as simple as this: If you would know the future’s shape, look to the past.”
Source: The Blind Astronomer's Daughter
“Once when I was a little child of six or so, I watched a spider spinning its web in a corner of the house. Before the spider had even finished its job, a mosquito flew right into the web and was trapped there. The spider didn't pay it any attention at first, but went on with what it was doing; only when it was finished did it creep over on its pointy toes and sting that poor mosquito to death. As I sat there on that wooden floor and watched Hatsumomo come reaching for me with her delicate fingers, I knew I was trapped in a web she had spun for me.”
Source: Memoirs Of A Geisha