⋅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. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅Altogether, St. Louis is a growing place, and the West has a large hand and a strong grasp. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅As a general rule, people disappoint you as you know them. /Maria Mitchell/

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

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

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

⋅I am just through with a summer, and a summer is to me always a trying ordeal. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅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. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅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. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅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. /Maria Mitchell/

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

⋅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. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅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. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅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. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅I was born, for instance, incapable of appreciating music. /Maria Mitchell/

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

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

⋅Question everything. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅Small aids to individuals, large aid to masses. /Maria Mitchell/

⋅Study as if you were going to live forever; live as if you were going to die tomorrow. /Maria Mitchell/