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"In October, 1865, occurred what was, in my eyes, the greatest event in the history of the observatory. The new transit circle arrived from Berlin in its boxes."
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"We live in an era with no historical precedents. History is no longer useful as a tool in helping us understand current changes."

"They were obviously headstones of graves, though the graves themselves no longer existed as either mounds or depressions; the years had leveled all. Scattered here and there, more massive blocks showed where some pompous or ambitious monument had once flung its feeble defiance at oblivion."

"There was something melancholic about that symbol of their nation's promise of freedom, a bell with a chipped mouth and cleft body."

"In a few days an officer came to our camp, under a flag of truce, and informed Hamilton, then a captain of artillery, but afterwards the aid of General Washington, that Captain Hale had been arrested within the British lines condemned as a spy, and executed that morning."

"This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors."
Explore more quotes by Simon Newcomb


"I had not yet gotten into the world of light. But I felt as one who, standing outside, could knock against the wall and hear an answering knock from within."


"A suggestion had been made to me looking toward a professorship in some Western college, but after due consideration, I declined to consider the matter."


"The beginning of 1856 found me teaching in the family of a planter named Bryan, residing in Prince George County, Md., some fifteen or twenty miles from Washington."


"In 1858 I received the degree of D. S. from the Lawrence Scientific School, and thereafter remained on the rolls of the university as a resident graduate."


"Until I was four years old I lived in the house of my paternal grandfather, about two miles from the pretty little village of Wallace, at the mouth of the river of that name."


"Whenever a total eclipse of the sun was visible in an accessible region parties were sent out to observe it."


"The result was that, if it happened to clear off after a cloudy evening, I frequently arose from my bed at any hour of the night or morning and walked two miles to the observatory to make some observation included in the programme."


"As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity."


"Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible."
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