"On the Diffraction of an Object-glass with Circular Aperture" read (Nov. 24, 1834) Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (1835) Vol. 5… - George Biddell Airy

In the hands of Science and indomitable energy, results the most gigantic and absorbing may be wrought out by skilful combinations of acknowledged data and the simplest means.

[H]ow much of the fundamentals of Astronomy may be obtained with the coarsest observation with the unaided eye. ...the science which is thus obtained by personal observations is vastly superior (as far as it goes) to that which is obtained by any other method. ...The knowledge ...inferred from actual personal observation carries with it a degree of reality and certainty, as the veritable science of external objects, which nothing else can give.

[T]he methods used for measuring Astronomical distances are in some applications absolutely the same as the methods of ordinary -surveying, and are in other applications equivalent to them...