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“The influence of the moon, of the planets – our next-door neighbours of the solar system – of the fixed stars scattered over the blue expanse in multitudes exceeding the power of human computation, and at distances of which imagination herself can form no distinct conception; the influence of all these upon the globe which we inhabit and upon the condition of man, its dying and deathless inhabitant, is great and mysterious, and, in search for final causes, to a great degree inscrutable to his finite and limited faculties. The extent to which they are discoverable is, and must remain unknown; but to the vigilance of a sleepless eye, to the toil of a tireless hand, and to the meditations of a thinking, combining, and analyzing mind secrets are successively revealed, not only of the deepest import to the welfare of man in his earthly career, but which seem to lift him blindfolded up to the Council Chamber of Omnipotence, and there stripping the bandage from his eyes, bid him look undazzled at the throne of God.”
-John Quincy Adams, 1840, former president of the USA-
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(Gracias Alex M.)