Per aspera ad Astra
Encyclopedia
Per aspera ad astra or Ad astra per aspera is a Latin phrase which means "Through hardships to the stars" or "To the stars through difficulties". The phrase is one of many Latin
sayings which use the expression
Ad astra
.
Various organizations and groups use this expression and its variants.
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
sayings which use the expression
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
Ad astra
Ad astra (phrase)
Ad astra is a Latin phrase meaning "to the stars". The phrase has origins with Virgil, who wrote sic itur ad astra and opta ardua pennis astra sequi, Ad astra is a Latin phrase meaning "to the stars". The phrase has origins with Virgil, who wrote sic itur ad astra ("thus you shall go to the...
.
Various organizations and groups use this expression and its variants.
- Literature
- In Hermann Hesse'sHermann HesseHermann Hesse was a German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature...
Beneath the WheelBeneath the WheelBeneath the Wheel is a 1906 novel written by Hermann Hesse. It is also sometimes titled The Prodigy in English.-Plot summary:...
, the headmaster of Maulbronn says this to Lucius for his futile efforts towards music.
- In Hermann Hesse's
- Schools and Institutions:
- Motto of St Patrick's High School, Karachi, Pakistan, one of the oldest institutions in Pakistan.
- Motto of Colfe's SchoolColfe's SchoolColfe's is a co-educational independent day school in Horn Park in the London Borough of Greenwich. The school is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The official Visitor to the school is HRH Prince Michael of Kent.-History:...
, UK. - Motto of Mayfield Grammar School, UK
- Motto of Campbell UniversityCampbell UniversityCampbell University is a coeducational, church-related university in rural North Carolina, USA. Its main campus is located in the community of Buies Creek; its law school moved from Buies Creek to a new campus in the state capital of Raleigh in 2009. Campbell has an approximately equal number of...
, Buies Creek, NC - Motto of Woodville High SchoolWoodville High SchoolWoodville High School may refer to:*Woodville High School — Adelaide, South Australia*Woodville High School — Woodville, Texas*Baldwin-Woodville High School — Baldwin, Wisconsin...
, Adelaide, South Australia - Motto of Rotorua Boys High School, New Zealand.
- Motto of Lake View High School, Chicago, United States
- Political entities:
- State of KansasKansasKansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
(Ad astra per aspera) - Duchy of Mecklenburg-SchwerinMecklenburg-SchwerinMecklenburg-Schwerin was a duchy in northern Germany created in 1348, when Albert II of Mecklenburg and his younger brother John were raised to Dukes of Mecklenburg by King Charles IV...
- City of GoudaGoudaGouda is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. Gouda, which was granted city rights in 1272, is famous for its Gouda cheese, smoking pipes, and 15th-century city hall....
, NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... - City of Embu-GuaçuEmbu-GuaçuEmbu-Guaçu is a municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil. The population in 2006 is 72,170 and the area is 155 km². The elevation is 408.22 m....
, BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people... - Town of Coalhurst, AlbertaAlbertaAlberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
- State of Kansas
- Military and Government:
- Spanish Air ForceSpanish Air Force-The early stages:Hot air balloons had been used with military purposes in Spain as far back as 1896. In 1905, with the help of Alfredo Kindelán, Leonardo Torres y Quevedo directed the construction of the first Spanish dirigible in the Army Military Aerostatics Service, created in 1896 and located...
- South African Air ForceSouth African Air ForceThe South African Air Force is the air force of South Africa, with headquarters in Pretoria. It is the world's second oldest independent air force, and its motto is Per Aspera Ad Astra...
- Military Technical Academy in Bucharest, Romania
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Quinto Grupo de Caza - Fuerza Aérea Argentina
- Department of Civil Aviation (Thailand)Department of Civil Aviation (Thailand)Department of Civil Aviation is the aviation authority of Thailand, headquartered in Sathorn, Bangkok."." Department of Civil Aviation. Retrieved on 4 March 2010.-External links:* *...
- Trenton Air Cadet Training Centre in Trenton,Canada
- Spanish Air Force
- Education and research:
- Colegiul National "Andrei Saguna" Brasov - PER ASPERA AD ASTRA
- Pietersburg Hoerskool (Per aspera ad astra)
- Trinity Prep in Winter Park, FL
- California State University East Bay
- Stevens Institute of TechnologyStevens Institute of TechnologyStevens Institute of Technology is a technological university located on a campus in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA – founded in 1870 with an 1868 bequest from Edwin A. Stevens. It is known for its engineering, science, and technological management curricula.The institute has produced leading...
- Campbell UniversityCampbell UniversityCampbell University is a coeducational, church-related university in rural North Carolina, USA. Its main campus is located in the community of Buies Creek; its law school moved from Buies Creek to a new campus in the state capital of Raleigh in 2009. Campbell has an approximately equal number of...
(Ad astra per aspera) - Greenhill School in Dallas, TexasDallas, TexasDallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
- Albury High SchoolAlbury High SchoolAlbury High School is a state high school located in the New South Wales city of Albury, Australia. Built in 1920, this large school hosts over 1300 students to this date.-Facilities:...
(Ad Astra per aspera) - Dr Challoner's Grammar SchoolDr Challoner's Grammar SchoolDr Challoner's Grammar School, often abbreviated to DCGS, is an Academy Grammar School of approximately 1,300 boys located in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England....
(Ad astra per aspera) - University High SchoolUniversity High School (Fresno)University High School is a charter high school on the campus of California State University, Fresno, in Fresno, California. The school emphasizes academics and music. UHS opened in 2000 with Dr. Brad Hufft as the founding Head of School, and its first seniors graduated in 2004. At the end of the...
in Fresno, CaliforniaFresno, CaliforniaFresno is a city in central California, United States, the county seat of Fresno County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 510,365, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 34th largest in the nation...
(Ad astra per aspera) - Gravesend Grammar School for Girls (Kent, UK)
- Escuela Nacional de Música (Tegucigalpa, Honduras)
- Immaculate Conception High School for Girls (Jamaica)
- Alexandru Papiu Ilarian High School in Targu-Mures, RomaniaRomaniaRomania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
- Andrei Mureșanu High School in BistrițaBistritaBistrița is the capital city of Bistriţa-Năsăud County, Transylvania, Romania. It is situated on the Bistriţa River. The city has a population of approximately 80,000 inhabitants, and it administers six villages: Ghinda, Sărata, Sigmir, Slătiniţa, Unirea and Viişoara.-History:The earliest sign of...
, RomaniaRomaniaRomania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea... - The Mirman School, Los Angeles, CA (Ad Astra per aspera): www.mirman.org
- University of Tennessee Space InstituteUniversity of Tennessee Space InstituteThe University of Tennessee Space Institute, also known as UTSI, is a satellite campus of the University of Tennessee located near Tullahoma, Tennessee....
- Keila-Joa Boarding School in TürisaluTürisaluTürisalu is a village in Harku Parish, Harju County in northern Estonia. It has a population of 499 .A famous suicide place Türisalu cliff is located in the village....
, EstoniaEstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
(Per aspera ad astra..) - St. Paul's Girl's School, Milagiriya, Sri LankaSri LankaSri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
(Per aspera ad astra) - Rotorua Boys' High SchoolRotorua Boys' High SchoolRotorua Boys' High School is a state school educating boys from Year 9 to Year 13. It is situated just outside of the Rotorua CBD at the intersection of Old Taupo Road and Pukuatua Street in Rotorua, New Zealand....
in RotoruaRotoruaRotorua is a city on the southern shores of the lake of the same name, in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. The city is the seat of the Rotorua District, a territorial authority encompassing the city and several other nearby towns...
, New ZealandNew ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
("Ad astra per aspera") - Mount Saint Michael AcademyMount Saint Michael AcademyMount Saint Michael Academy, also known as The Mount, is an all-boys Roman Catholic High School in the northeast part of the Bronx, New York, on the Mount Vernon city line, . The 22-acre campus is a non-boarding college preparatory school for some 1,100 boys grades 6 through 12...
in Bronx, New York - Miami Central High SchoolMiami Central High SchoolMiami Central Senior High School, commonly referred to as Central Rockets, is a secondary school located at 1781 NW 95th Street in West Little River, unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA. The school serves most of the northern fringes of the city of Miami as well as parts of North Miami,...
in Miami, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
("Ad astra per aspera") - Stavanger Cathedral School a Norwegian upper secondary school in Stavanger, NorwayStavangerStavanger is a city and municipality in the county of Rogaland, Norway.Stavanger municipality has a population of 126,469. There are 197,852 people living in the Stavanger conurbation, making Stavanger the fourth largest city, but the third largest urban area, in Norway...
("Per aspera ad astra", and to a lesser extent "per ardua ad astra").
- Fraternities and sororities:
- Beta Sigma PsiBeta Sigma PsiBeta Sigma Psi National Lutheran Fraternity is a pan Lutheran fraternity and is the second oldest Christian fraternal organization in the United States of America. Founded at the University of Illinois in 1925, ΒΣΨ has more than 7,500 initiated members. With 10 chapters and colonies in 7 states,...
National Lutheran Fraternity - Sigma Gamma Phi - Arethusa Sorority
- Korp! Amicitia - Estonian student sorority.
- Beta Sigma Psi
- Popular culture:
- Rip TornRip TornElmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...
says this phrase to David BowieDavid BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
in the film "The Man Who Fell to EarthThe Man Who Fell to EarthThe Man Who Fell to Earth is a 1963 science fiction novel by American author Walter Tevis, about an extraterrestrial who lands on Earth seeking a way to ferry his people to Earth from his home planet, which is suffering from a severe drought...
". - Tomo Milicevic, of the band 30 Seconds to Mars, has a tattoo on his right forearm reading 'per aspera et astra', with the band's logo in the background in red.
- Popular Filipino comic writer Pol Medina, Jr.Pol Medina, Jr.Apolonio "Pol" Medina, Jr. is a Filipino cartoonist best known for creating Pugad Baboy, a black-and-white comic strip first published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 18, 1988.-Biography:...
of Pugad BaboyPugad BaboyPugad Baboy is a comic strip created by Filipino cartoonist Apolonio "Pol" Medina, Jr. The strip is about a Manila community of mostly obese people - "fat as pigs", so to speak ....
fame - Aspera! Per aspera! Per ardua! Ad astra! is the refrain of the song "Aspera" by Erin McKeownErin McKeownErin McKeown is an American multi-instrumentalist and folk-rock singer/songwriter.McKeown began her career in the folk scene. She released her first album, Monday Morning Cold, on her own label , travelling throughout New England while still a student at Brown University in order to promote the...
on the album We Will Become Like BirdsWe Will Become Like BirdsWe Will Become Like Birds is the fourth album by Erin McKeown. It was released via Nettwerk Records in 2005 and features contributions from Juana Molina and Peter Mulvey.-Track listing:# Aspera# Air# Life On the Moon# To The Stars...
. - At the end of the credits of a Half-Life 2Half-Life 2Half-Life 2 , the sequel to Half-Life, is a first-person shooter video game and a signature title in the Half-Life series. It is singleplayer, story-driven, science fiction, and linear...
modMod (computer gaming)Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
called Riot Act - Said by Neil Patrick HarrisNeil Patrick HarrisNeil Patrick Harris is an American actor, singer, director, and magician.Prominent roles of his career include the title role in Doogie Howser, M.D., Colonel Carl Jenkins in Starship Troopers, the womanizing Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, a fictionalized version of himself in the Harold...
in episode 18, season 4 of the TV show, Doogie Howser, M.D.Doogie Howser, M.D.Doogie Howser, M.D. is an American television comedy-drama starring Neil Patrick Harris as a 16-year-old doctor who also faces the problems of being a normal teenager. Created by Steven Bochco and David E. Kelley, ABC aired the show from 1989 to 1993 for four seasons totaling 97 episodes.-Plot:Dr.... - Title of a play depicting the history of the fictional Maycomb County in To Kill A MockingbirdTo Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was instantly successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature...
, in which the translation is given as from the mud to the stars. - Title of a song by HaggardHaggardHaggard means worn out and exhausted because of suffering.Haggard may also refer to:* Haggard * Haggard , a German symphonic metal group* Haggard , a British comedy television series...
, from the album Eppur Si MuoveEppur Si MuoveEppur si muove is the third full-length album by the German symphonic metal band Haggard. It was released on April 26, 2004 by Drakkar Entertainment....
. - The name of an album by Abandon KansasAbandon KansasAbandon Kansas is an American Alternative Rock band. As the name suggests, the band originates from Wichita, Kansas. The band is currently on tour to promote their new album, Ad Astra per Aspera, which was released on Gotee Records in 2011....
. - A line from the song "On Thin Ice" by EvereveEvereve- Biography :The band takes their name from a poem in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in which Evereve is a place where one's dreams may come true...
, from the album Tried and Failed. - It is one of many hidden messages in the 2009 video game The ConduitThe ConduitThe Conduit is a first-person shooter video game developed by High Voltage Software for the Wii console. The Conduit was first revealed by the developer on the video game website IGN on April 17, 2008, and on October 29, 2008, the developer announced that Sega had signed on to be the game's...
. - Motto of the Martian Imperial Commandos in Kurt VonnegutKurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
novel, The Sirens of TitanThe Sirens of TitanThe Sirens of Titan is a Hugo Award-nominated novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., first published in 1959. His second novel, it involves issues of free will, omniscience, and the overall purpose of human history...
. - Title of a song by Seattle based band AcceptanceAcceptance (band)Acceptance was an alternative rock band from Seattle, Washington, formed in 1998. They released their first EP, Lost for Words, in 2000, followed by Black Lines to Battlefields in 2003...
. - Title of a song by Goasia, appearing on the album From Other Spaces (Suntrip records, 2007)
- Appears on Right side shoulder patch in Star Trek Enterprise; on the "newer" uniform style shown on the series finale.
- It is the name of an albumPer Aspera Ad Astra (album)Per Aspera ad Astra is the fourth studio LP by Stars of the Lid. It was made in collaboration with artist Jon McCafferty and released on Kranky Records in 1998...
by Stars of the LidStars of the LidStars of the Lid is a duo specializing in drone-based ambient music. They list among their influences minimalist and electronic composers such as Arvo Pärt, Zbigniew Preisner, Gavin Bryars, and Henryk Górecki, as well as Talk Talk , post-rock artists Labradford, and ambient innovator Brian... - The official motto of Solforce in the videogame Sword of the StarsSword of the StarsSword of the Stars is a space 4X game developed by Kerberos Productions. In the game the player chooses one of four unique races to form an interstellar empire and conquer the galaxy...
.
- Rip Torn
- Others:
- The quote from Battlefield Bad Company 2
- A plaque honoring the astronauts of Apollo 1 at the launch site where they perished.
- Inscribed on the crest of Pall Mall cigarettesPall Mall (cigarette)Pall Mall cigarettes are a brand of cigarettes produced by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and internationally by British American Tobacco at multiple sites.- History :...
packages - The final mission (Chapter 15) in Mafia IIMafia IIMafia II is a third-person action-adventure video game, the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. It is developed by 2K Czech, previously known as Illusion Softworks, and is published by 2K Games...
- The theme of "POR CC XXI" by Kolese Kanisius Jakarta