Firmament
The firmament is the sky, conceived as a solid dome. According to Genesis, God created the firmament to separate the "waters above" (the source of rain) from those below (in the underworld). The word is anglicised from Latin firmamentum, which appears in the Vulgate.
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Famous quotes containing the word firmament:
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm XIX (l. XIX, 1)
“However much we admire the orator’s occasional bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or above the fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is behind the clouds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Personal beauty is then first charming and itself, when it dissatisfies us with any end; when it becomes a story without an end; when it suggests gleams and visions, and not earthly satisfactions; when it makes the beholder feel his unworthiness; when he cannot feel his right to it, though he were Caesar; he cannot feel more right to it than to the firmament and the splendors of a sunset.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)