Quotes from Maria Mitchell

To read a book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a book which will not repay some hard thought is not worth publishing.

I was a little doubtful about the propriety of going to the Mammoth Cave without a gentleman escort, but if two ladies travel alone they must have the courage of men.

A traveller, lost on a desert plain, feels that the recognition of one star, the Pole star, is of itself a great acquisition.

I saw, in looking over Cooper, elements of a comet of 1825 which resemble what I get out for this, from my own observations, but I cannot rely upon my own.

I was born, for instance, incapable of appreciating music.

The love of one's own sex is precious, for it is neither provoked by vanity nor retained by flattery; it is genuine and sincere.

I have just gone over my comet computations again, and it is humiliating to perceive how very little more I know than I did seven years ago when I first did this kind of work.

Yesterday I had a Shaker visitor, and today a Catholic; and the more I see and hear, the less do I care about church doctrines.

Small aids to individuals, large aid to masses.

Let us secure not such books as people want, but books just above their wants, and they will reach up to take what is put out for them.

Study as if you were going to live forever; live as if you were going to die tomorrow.

We travel to learn; and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own.

No woman should say, "I am but a woman!" But a woman! What more can you ask to be?

The Southern character is opposed to haste. Safety is of more worth than speed, and there is no hurry.

There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.

A sphere is made up of not one, but an infinite number of circles; women have diverse gifts, and to say that women's sphere is the family circle is a mathematical absurdity.

I had, early in life, a love for staging, but it is fast dying out. Nine hours over a rough road are enough to root out the most passionate love of that kind.

Do not look at stars as bright spots only. Try to take in the vastness of the universe.

The greatest object in educating is to give a right habit of study.

It is sad to see a woman sacrificing the ties of the affections even to do good.

That knowledge which is popular is not scientific.

We especially need imagination in science.

I would as soon put a girl alone into a closet to meditate as give her only the society of her needle.

We travel to learn and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own.