51 Fascinating Maria Mitchell Quotes To Motivate Young Talent

Maria Mitchell was a well-known naturalist, astronomer, educator, and librarian from the United States.

Maria Mitchell's date of birth was August 1, 1818, while the place of her birth was Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States of America. Maria Mitchell found a comet in 1847 with the name 1847 VI, the current abbreviation C/1847 T1, which became famous as 'Miss Mitchell's Comet' in her remembrance.

Maria Mitchell received a gold medal award for her finding in 1848 from King Christian VIII of Denmark. Upon receiving a post at Vassar College in 1865, Maria Mitchell became the first well-known woman in the world to operate as a professional astronomer and an astronomy instructor. She passed away on June 28, 1889, at 70 years old in Lynn, Massachusetts, United States. Maria Mitchell hosted several notable day scholars at her Nantucket house, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sojourner Truth, Herman Melville, and Frederick Douglass. Maria  Mitchell agreed to work as a fieldwork researcher and computer programmer for the US Coast Survey, conducted at the US Nautical Almanac Office in 1849. Her duties involved keeping tabs on the motions of the planets, especially Venus, and creating tables of their roles to aid navigators.

In 1850, she became a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and made friends with several of its leaders, notably Joseph Henry, Smithsonian Institution's director. In 1857, Maria Mitchell visited Europe. While traveling, Maria Mitchell visited the institutions of Sir John and Caroline Herschel and Mary Somerville, two prominent European astronomers of the time. Before resuming her journey with Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family, she also talked to a wide range of natural thinkers, such as Adam Sedgewick, Alexander von Humboldt, and William Whewell. Despite not having a college degree, Maria Mitchell was chosen by Vassar College's founder, Matthew Vassar, to be the department's first female astronomy instructor in 1865. Maria Mitchell, the first representative of the faculty, was also chosen as the Vassar College Observatory's director, a post she retained for 20 years. Throughout her tenure as a professor, Maria Mitchell also managed the Scientific American astronomy column. Vassar College recruited more candidates in mathematics and astronomy than Harvard University between 1865 through 1888, in part because of Mitchell's direction. Maria Mitchell was among the first women appointed to the American Philosophical Society in 1869, together with Mary Somerville and Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz.

Throughout her lifetime, Maria Mitchell authored three pieces outlining her discoveries in Silliman's Journal and seven entries in the Royal Society Catalog. Maria Mitchell also published three well-known articles for 'Hours' in Home, Century, and The Atlantic. She joined the anti-slavery cause by rejecting to wear clothing made of Southern cotton when attending the anti-slavery assembly in Nantucket in 1841, where Frederick Douglass gave his first address. As a professor, she became interested in various social concerns, notably those related to women's liberation and schooling. Several suffragists, notably Elizabeth Cady Stanton, became her friends. The Association for the Advancement of Women (AAW), a society devoted to education reforms and the advocacy of women in higher education, was founded by Maria Mitchell when she returned from a European visit in 1873.

Here are some interesting Maria Mitchell quotes on life that might inspire you to live with happiness and to the fullest.

"Every formula which expresses a law of nature is a hymn of praise to God."

"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."

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

"We reach forth and strain every nerve, but we seize only a bit of the curtain that hides the infinite from us."

"The world of learning is so broad, and the human soul is so limited in power!"

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

"People have to learn sometimes not only how much the heart, but how much the head, can bear."

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

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

"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."

"We have a hunger of the mind Which asks for knowledge all around us And the more we gain, the more is our desire."

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

"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry."

"I am just learning to notice the different colors of the stars, and already begin to have a new enjoyment."

"An English village could never be mistaken for an American one: the outline against the sky differs; a thatched cottage makes a very wavy line on the blue above."

Here are some fascinating and readable Maria Mitchell quotes on Astronomy that might help you understand science through the power of words.

"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."

"The eye that directs a needle in the delicate meshes of embroidery will equally well bisect a star with the spiderweb of the micrometer."

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

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

"There will come with the greater love of science greater love to one another."

"There is something of the same pleasure in noticing the hues of the stars that there is in looking at a flower garden in autumn."

"The phrase ‘popular science’ has in itself a touch of absurdity. That knowledge which is popular is not scientific."

"Nothing comes out more clearly in astronomical observations than the immense activity of the universe."

"The ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it."

(Maria Mitchell supported the national women's movement.)

Here are some Maria Mitchell Quotes on education that might help you understand her perspective on education.

"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."

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

"But why look back at all? Why turn your eyes to your shadow, when, by looking upward, you see your rainbow in the same direction?"

"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."

"A young sailor boy came to see me today. It pleases me to have these lads seek me on their return from their first voyage, and tell me how much they have learned about navigation."

"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."

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

"How strange that some people cannot believe in both the Book of Nature and the Book of God."

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

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

"Living more nearly to Nature is living farther from the world and from its follies, but nearer to the world’s people."

"Why can a man not act himself, be himself, and think for himself? It seems to me that naturalness alone is power; that a borrowed word is weaker than our own weakness, however small we may be."

"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."

"Women, more than men, are bound by tradition and authority. What the father, the brother, the doctor, and the minister have said has been received undoubtingly. Until women throw off this reverence for authority they will not develop."

"Besides learning to see, there is another art to be learned – not to see what is not."

Here are some Maria Mitchell Quotes on leadership that might help you learn from hope to lead a better life.

"I made observations for three hours last night, and am almost ill today from fatigue; still I have worked all day, trying to reduce the places, and mean to work hard again tonight."

"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."

"I have worn myself thin trying to find out about this comet, and I know very little now in the matter."

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

"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."

"I am always the better for open-air breathing, and was certainly meant for the wandering life of the Indian."

"Altogether, St. Louis is a growing place, and the West has a large hand and a strong grasp."

"I am just through with a summer, and a summer is to me always a trying ordeal."

"It seems to be difficult for any one to take in the idea that two truths cannot conflict."

"Truth or myth, it is only for me to know. Come with me into the rich texture of Bizco’s kingdom."

"The best that can be said of my life so far is that it has been industrious and the best that can be said of me is that I have not pretended to what I was not."

"Don’t examine a black spot upon your pillow-case; go to sleep at once, and keep asleep if you can. "

"As a general rule, people disappoint you as you know them."