Maria Mitchell

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born 1818

Maria Mitchell wanted to be an astronomer from the time her father taught her to use a telescope at age 12. Her big break came 16 years later in 1847, when she discovered a new comet {which now bears her name} while scanning the skies one fateful October night.

Maria continued to study the cosmos while working as a librarian in her native Nantucket. Making a career out of her passion, she became the US's first female pro astronomer + first professor hired by Vassar College in 1865. There, the lauded scientist + civil rights activist inspired scores of female students to follow her lead. An advocate for original research, Maria never failed to ask ~ "Did you learn it from a book or did you observe it yourself?"

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all quotes by Maria Mitchell (19)

"I am just learning to notice the different colors of the stars, and already beginning to have a new enjoyment."
Life, Letters and Journals | december 1852

"People have to learn sometimes not only how much the heart, but how much the head, can bear."
Life, Letters and Journals | october 1853

"The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power! We reach forth and strain every nerve, but we seize only a bit of the curtain that hides the infinite from us."
Life, Letters and Journals | october 1854

"Don't examine a black spot upon your pillow-case; go to sleep at once, and keep asleep if you can."
Life, Letters and Journals | may 1857

"The ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it."
Life, Letters and Journals | may 1857

"It is singular what a quiet motive-power science is, the breath of a nation's progress."
Life, Letters and Journals | 1858

"It seems to be difficult for any one to take in the idea that two truths cannot conflict."
Life, Letters and Journals | march 1858

"The phrase 'popular science' has in itself a touch of absurdity. That knowledge which is popular is not scientific."
Life, Letters and Journals | 1866

"When we are chafed and fretted by small cares, a look at the stars will show us the littleness of our own interests."
Life, Letters and Journals | 1866

"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but is somewhat beauty and poetry."
Life, Letters and Journals | 1871

"Living more nearly to Nature is living farther from the world and from its follies, but nearer to the world's people."
Life, Letters and Journals | 1871

"There will come with the greater love of science greater love to one another."
Life, Letters and Journals | 1871

"Born a woman—born with the average brain of humanity—born with more than the average heart—if you are mortal, what higher destiny could you have?"
Life, Letters and Journals | 1874

"No woman should say, 'I am but a woman!' But a woman! What more can you ask to be?"
Life, Letters and Journals | 1874

"For women there are, undoubtedly, great difficulties in the path, but so much the more to overcome."
Life, Letters and Journals | 1874

"Besides learning to see, there is another art to be learned—not to see what is not."
Life, Letters, and Journals | july 1878

"We have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing."
Life, Letters and Journals | july 1878