Galileo Galileo Quotes & Sayings

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

To me, a great ineptitude exists on the part of those who would have it that God made the universe more in proportion to the small capacity of their reason than to His immense, His infinite, power. — Galileo Galilei

Galileo probably would have escaped persecution if his discoveries could have been disproved. — Richard Whately

There are many perks to living for twenty-one centuries, and foremost among them is bearing witness to the rare birth of genius. It invariably goes like this: Someone shrugs off the weight of his cultural traditions, ignores the baleful stares of authority, and does something his countrymen think to be completely batshit insane. Of those, Galileo was my personal favorite. Van Gogh comes in second, but he really was batshit insane. — Kevin Hearne

The Divine intellect indeed knows infinitely more propositions [than we can ever know]. But with regard to those few which the human intellect does understand, I believe that its knowledge equals the Divine in objective certainty. — Galileo Galilei

In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. — Galileo Galilei

Their vain presumption of knowing all can take beginning solely from their never having known anything; for if one has but once experienced the perfect knowledge of one thing, and truly tasted what it is to know, he shall perceive that of infinite other conclusions he understands not so much as one. — Galileo Galilei

Harvey , Galileo , Copernicus do not seem occult to us, but they did so to their contemporaries, hierophants of the mysteries of Natural Law, revealers of the secrets of a New Order of the Ages. After all, the movement eventually came to be called the Age of Enlightenment. — Kenneth Rexroth

I've grown to fond of the stars to be fearful of the night. — Galileo

My message to the Pope would be, don't take sides on the science. Don't make the same mistake as seven out of 10 judges in the trial of Galileo, when they invited him to retract his views. — Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton Of Brenchley

The Church has opposed every innovation and discovery from the day of Galileo down to our own time, when the use of anesthetics in childbirth was regarded as a sin because it avoided the biblical curse pronounced against Eve. — Mark Twain

Sherman Reilly Duffy of the pre-World War I CHICAGO DAILY JOURNAL once told a cub reporter, 'Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.' Well, socially I fit in just fine between the whore and the bartender. Both are close friends. And I knew the world was round. Yet, as time went by I found myself confronted with the ugly suspicion that the world was, after all, flat and that there were things dark and terrible waiting just over the edge to reach out and snatch life from the unlucky, unwary wanderer. — Jeff Rice

A conflict arises when a religious community insists on the absolute truthfulness of all statements recorded in the Bible. This means an intervention on the part of religion into the sphere of science; this is where the struggle of the Church against doctrines of Galileo and Darwin belongs. — Albert Einstein

It helps nothing to cry and complain, to pluck our hair. There's no difference between getting mad at our fate and getting mad at rocks and stones. The ears of Fate are completely deaf; anyway, it doesn't matter whether she hears our voices or not; when the moment comes, she only speaks of the things she has already designed and rains the orders she has already planned. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry? — Galileo Galilei

Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, doubt (called by Galileo the father of invention), be in religion what the priests term it, the greatest of sins? — Christian Nestell Bovee

What has philosophy got to do with measuring anything? It's the mathematicians you have to trust, and they measure the skies like we measure a field. — Galileo Galilei

You may force me to say what you wish; you may revile me for saying what I do. But it moves. — Galileo Galilei

But, because my private lectures and domestic pupils are a great hinderance and intteruption of my studies, I wish to live entirely exempt from the former, and in great measure from the latter ... in short, I should wish to gain my bread from my writings. — Galileo Galilei

A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right. — Stephen Jay Gould

Zen is completely free from the fetters of old dogmas, dead creeds, and conventions of stereotyped past, that check the development of a religious faith and prevent the discovery of a new truth. Zen needs no Inquisition. It never compelled nor will compel the compromise of a Galileo or a Descartes. No excommunication of a Spinoza or the burning of a Bruno is possible for Zen. — Kaiten Nukariya

You can't teach anybody anything, only make them realize the answers are already inside them. — Galileo Galilei

For four hundred years since Galileo, science has always proceeded as a free and open inquiry into the workings of nature. Scientists have always ignored national boundaries, holding themselves above the transitory concerns of politics and even wars. Scientists have always rebelled against secrecy in research, and have even frowned on the idea of patenting their discoveries, seeing themselves as working to the benefit of all mankind. And for many generations, the discoveries of scientists did indeed have a peculiarly selfless quality. — Michael Crichton

The Anti-Vivisector does not deny that physiologists must make experiments and even take chances with new methods. He says that they must not seek knowledge by criminal methods, just as they must not make money by criminal methods. He does not object to Galileo dropping cannon balls from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa; but he would object to shoving off two dogs or American tourists. — George Bernard Shaw

I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go. — Galileo Galilei

One can truly say that the irresistible progress of natural science since the time of Galileo has made its first halt before the study of the higher parts of the brain, the organ of the most complicated relations of the animal to the external world. And it seems, and not without reason, that now is the really critical moment for natural science; for the brain, in its highest complexity - the human brain - which created and creates natural science, itself becomes the object of this science. — Ivan Pavlov

The way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir — Alfred North Whitehead

The doctrine that the earth is neither the center of the universe nor immovable, but moves even with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, and at the least an error of faith. — Galileo Galilei

We come astonishingly close to the mystical beliefs of Pythagoras and his followers who attempted to submit all of life to the sovereignty of numbers. Many of our psychologists, sociologists, economists and other latter-day cabalists will have numbers to tell them the truth or they will have nothing ... We must remember that Galileo merely said that the language of nature is written in mathematics. He did not say that everything is. And even the truth about nature need not be expressed in mathematics. For most of human history, the language of nature has been the language of myth and ritual. These forms, one might add, had the virtues of leaving nature unthreatened and of encouraging the belief that human beings are part of it. It hardly befits a people who stand ready to blow up the planet to praise themselves too vigorously for having found the true way to talk about nature. — Neil Postman

In this book, you will encounter various interesting geometries that have been thought to hold the keys to the universe. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) suggested that "Nature's great book is written in mathematical symbols." Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) modeled the solar system with Platonic solids such as the dodecahedron. In the 1960s, physicist Eugene Wigner (1902-1995) was impressed with the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences." Large Lie groups, like E8-which is discussed in the entry "The Quest for Lie Group E8 (2007)"- may someday help us create a unified theory of physics. in 2007, Swedish American cosmologist Max Tegmark published both scientific and popular articles on the mathematical universe hypothesis, which states that our physical reality is a mathematical structure-in other words, our universe in not just described by mathematics-it is mathematics. — Clifford A. Pickover

The mind God is looking for in man is a doubting, questioning mind, not a dogmatic mind; dogmatic reasoning is wrong reasoning. Dogmatic reason ties a huge rock to a man's foot and stops him forever from advancing. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

I never worry about how many legs my chicken has, about whether it can fly or not, about which cock was her husband; that my hen gives me eggs is enough for me! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Oh, my dear Kepler, how I wish that we could have one hearty laugh together. Here, at Padua, is the principal professor of philosophy, whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass, [telescope] which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not here? what shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly! and to hear the professor of philosophy at Pisa laboring before the grand duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the sky. — Galileo Galilei

It used to be, it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier. — Ted Cruz

Accelerometrics is a cool new discipline. Newton and Galileo would love it. — Philippe Kahn

When the moon is ninety degrees away from the sun it sees but half the earth illuminated (the western half). For the other (the eastern half) is enveloped in night. Hence the moon itself is illuminated less brightly from the earth, and as a result its secondary light appears fainter to us. — Galileo Galilei

We must say that there are as many squares as there are numbers. — Galileo Galilei

I esteem myself happy to have as great an ally as you in my search for truth. I will read your work ... all the more willingly because I have for many years been a partisan of the Copernican view because it reveals to me the causes of many natural phenomena that are entirely incomprehensible in the light of the generally accepted hypothesis. To refute the latter I have collected many proofs, but I do not publish them, because I am deterred by the fate of our teacher Copernicus who, although he had won immortal fame with a few, was ridiculed and condemned by countless people (for very great is the number of the stupid).

{Letter to fellow revolutionary astronomer Johannes Kepelr} — Galileo Galilei

Nature is written in mathematical language. — Galileo Galilei

The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. — Galileo Galilei

History of science is a relay race, my painter friend. Copernicus took over his flag from Aristarchus, from Cicero, from Plutarch; and Galileo took that flag over from Copernicus. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. — Galileo Galilei

Galileo was challenged because he declared a theory to be a fact and argued with the Church about the genuine meaning of the Bible. — Michael Coren

The Milky Way is nothing else but a mass of innumerable stars planted together in clusters. — Galileo Galilei

They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment and growth of the arts; not their dimination or destruction. — Galileo Galilei

Galileo - the father of modern physics - indeed of modern science. — Albert Einstein

Galileo got into trouble because he maintained that since the new discoveries seemed to contradict scripture, those passages of scripture should be reinterpreted in a metaphorical way. He did not seek to oppose the Church nor to doubt the inspiration of scripture. The problem is that he abandoned science and started talking theology and so attracted the notice of the Roman Inquisition. If he had left theology out of his writings and discussions he would probably never have had problems. And he remained a faithful and devout Catholic to the end of his life. — Michael Coren

I, Galileo, son of the late Vicenzo Galilei, swear that I never said that the prime numbers are useless. What I said was that you cannot count lunar craters by counting 2, 3, 5, 7 ... — Galileo Galilei

It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved. — Galileo Galilei

We are surrounded by the dry thorns of the Inquisition on all four sides; throwing around words burning like fire is the shortest way to one's grave! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

It is impossible not to feel stirred at the thought of the emotions of man at certain historic moments of adventure and discovery - Columbus when he first saw the Western shore, Pizarro when he stared at the Pacific Ocean, Franklin when the electric spark came from the string of his kite, Galileo when he first turned his telescope to the heavens. Such moments are also granted to students in the abstract regions of thought, and high among them must be placed the morning when Descartes lay in bed and invented the method of co-ordinate geometry. — Alfred North Whitehead

I suppose Galileo felt that the discovery of the fact that the laws of nature are not unchanged under change of scale was as important as his laws of motion, because they are both put together in the tome on Two New Sciences. — Richard Feynman

Spots are on the surface of the solar body where they are produced and also dissolved, some in shorter and others in longer periods. They are carried around the Sun; an important occurrence in itself. — Galileo Galilei

Stick out your arms," he'd say, "straight out at your sides," and when he had you in the appropriate cruciform position he'd say, "Left index finger to right index finger straight across your heart, that's the history of the Earth. You know what human history is? Human history is the nail on your right-hand index finger. Not even the whole nail. Just that little white part. The part you clip off when it gets too long. That's the discovery of fire and the invention of writing and Galileo and Newton and the moon landing and 9/11 and last week and this morning. Compared to evolution we're newborns. Compared to geology, we barely exist — Robert Charles Wilson

Between their rise in the thirteenth century and their sudden fall in the seventeenth, when the line abruptly ended, the Medicis produced three popes, two queens, and many Florentine rulers, and they supported the work of Galileo, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Botticelli - a veritable parade of geniuses. — Hanya Yanagihara

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. — Galileo Galilei

in the ballroom of the Metropol Hotel on the twenty-first of June 1926, was the heretic, Galileo of Galilei, vindicated by a ping, a splat, a smash, a thunk, a thump, and a thud. Of — Amor Towles

Their mistake was the mistake of Galileo. He was right that the earth revolves around the sun, but he didn't know that the entire solar system revolves around yet another center; he didn't know that the real orbit of the earth, as opposed to the relative orbit, is by no means some naive circle ... — Yevgeny Zamyatin

[Newton wrote to Halley ... that he would not give Hooke any credit] That, alas, is vanity. You find it in so many scientists. You know, it has always hurt me to think that Galileo did not acknowledge the work of Kepler. — Albert Einstein

The question I hoped to answer,was how much mechanics Aristotle had known, how much he had left for people such as Galileo and Newton to discover. Given that formulation, I rapidly discovered that Aristotle had known almost no mechanics at all... that conclusion was standard and it might in principle have been right. But I found it bothersome because, as I was reading him, Aristotle appeared not only ignorant of mechanics, but a dreadfully bad physical scientist as well. About motion, in particular, his writings seemed to me full of egregious errors, both of logic and of observation. — T.C. Kuhn

It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand. — Galileo Galilei

When you drop a hammer and a feather together, which one hits the ground first? If you pose this question to the general public, the most expected answer is based on common sense, that the heavier objects fall faster to the ground. David Scott, the seventh man to set foot on the moon during the Apollo 15 mission, carried out this simple experiment. dropped a hammer and a feather together He onto the moon's surface and expectedly they fell on the ground together. This demonstrated Galileo's genius and corrected the general misconception that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones because they have more affinity towards the Earth Even Aristotle was proved wrong. It becomes obvious that with bit of curiosity and application of mind and intuitiveness, one can understand the laws of nature better. — Sharad Nalawade

But why has our physical world revealed such extreme mathematical regularity that astronomy superhero Galileo Galilei proclaimed nature to be "a book written in the language of mathematics," and Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner stressed the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the physical sciences" as a mystery demanding an explanation? — Max Tegmark

Among the great men who have philosophized about [the action of the tides], the one who surprised me most is Kepler. He was a person of independent genius, [but he] became interested in the action of the moon on the water, and in other occult phenomena, and similar childishness. — Galileo Galilei

Galileo wrote that 'the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics; without its help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it. — Steven Pinker

Oh, it's mysterious lamplit evenings, here in the galaxy, one after the other. It's one of those nights when I wander from window to window, looking for a sign. But I can't see. Terror and a beauty insoluble are a ribband of blue woven into the fringes of garments of things both great and small. No culture explains, no bivouac offers real haven or rest. But it could be that we are not seeing something. Galileo thought that comets were an optical illusion. This is fertile ground: since we are certain that they're not, we can look at what scientists are saying with fresh hope. What if there are really gleaming castellated cities hung upside-down over the desert sand? What limpid lakes and cool date palms have our caravans passed untried? Until, one by one, by the blindest of leaps, we light on the road to these places, we must stumble in darkness and hunger. — Annie Dillard

Galileo did not want to agree. He never wanted to agree; agreeing was something other people did, with him, after they had disagreed. — Kim Stanley Robinson

There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought. And though I knew that England then was groaning loudest under the prelatical yoke, nevertheless I took it as a pledge of future happiness, that other nations were so persuaded of her liberty. Yet was it beyond my hope that those worthies were then breathing in her air, who should be her leaders to such a deliverance, as shall never be forgotten by any revolution of time that this world hath to finish. — John Milton

The vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than never having understood anything. For anyone who had ever experienced just once the perfect understanding of one single thing, and had truly tasted how knowledge is accomplished, would recognize that of the infinity of other truths he understands nothing. — Galileo Galilei

The reality is that while heliocentrism was discussed and often accepted within Catholic circles - it was effectively the only place where it could be - the more traditional view of the solar system still prevailed even among leading scientists. So it's hardly surprising that Galileo's Catholic judges had difficulty accepting his views, especially when they saw themselves as defending scientific orthodoxy and were supported in this by the scientific establishment. — Michael Coren

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in. — Galileo Galilei

The first man to understand the extraordinary magical power of applying mathematical calculation to things in nature was an Italian called Galileo Galilei. — E.H. Gombrich

The seers of ancient India had, in their experiments and efforts at spiritual training and the conquest of the body, perfected a discovery which in its importance to the future of human knowledge dwarfs the divinations of Newton and Galileo , even the discovery of the inductive and experimental method in Science was not more momentous ... — Sri Aurobindo

We have two boys, and one of our kids is much more interested in history and stories, so if you want him to do some calculations about lenses, you would start talking to him about Galileo ... Then he would be into the lenses, but if you just start talking to him about lenses, he might not stay with you. — Megan Smith

However, Galileo got into trouble when he turned his telescope toward a wider horizon. The discovery of the four moons orbiting Jupiter - Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto - suggested that the Earth was not the centre of the universe about which all celestial bodies orbited. By challenging the geocentric model of the Solar System, Galileo found himself accused of heresy and was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. — Andrew Thomas

Knowing thyself, that is the greatest wisdom. — Galileo Galilei

God is known by nature in his works, and by doctrine in his revealed word. — Galileo Galilei

This book tells the story of that moment in time. It is a story of high adventure set during the age of exploration - when Francis Drake, Henry Hudson, and Captain John Smith were expanding the boundaries of the world, and Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Galileo, Descartes, Mercator, Vermeer, Harvey, and Bacon were revolutionizing human thought and expression. — Russell Shorto

Over three hundred years ago Galileo said: You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself. — Dale Carnegie

Take note, theologians, that in your desire to make matters of faith out of propositions relating to the fixity of sun and earth you run the risk of eventually having to condemn as heretics those who would declare the earth to stand still and the sun to change position-eventually, I say, at such a time as it might be physically or logically proved that the earth moves and the sun stands still. — Galileo Galilei

I am certainly interested in a tribunal in which, for having used my reason, I was deemed little less than a heretic. Who knows but men will reduce me from the profession of a philosopher to that of historian of the Inquisition! — Galileo Galilei

I truly believe the book of philosophy to be that which stands perpetually open before our eyes, though since it is written in characters different from those of our alphabet it cannot be read by everyone. — Galileo Galilei

Man is a 'jar of mistakes', dear Giulia; as we have made a mistake, we are human; this proves it! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

I have been in my bed for five weeks, oppressed with weakness and other infirmities from which my age, seventy four years, permits me not to hope release. Added to this (proh dolor! [O misery!]) the sight of my right eye - that eye whose labors (dare I say it) have had such glorious results - is for ever lost. That of the left, which was and is imperfect, is rendered null by continual weeping. — Galileo Galilei

Being infinitely amazed, so do I give thanks to God, Who has been pleased to make me the first observer of marvelous things, unrevealed to bygone ages. — Galileo Galilei

In time you may discover everything that can be discovered, and still your progress will only be progress away from humanity. The distance between you and them can one day become so great that your joyous cry over some new gain could be answered by an universal shriek of horror. — Galileo Galilei

[The ceremonial key to the city of Padua] is engraved with a quote from Galileo that is also on display at the physics department of the university...'I deem it of more value to find out a truth about however light a matter than to engage in long disputes about the greatest questions without achieving any truth. — Lisa Randall

And so sometimes when you feel strange, when a pang tugs at your heart or it seems like the moment has already happened- or when you look up in the sky and are surprised at the sight of bright Jupiter between clouds, and everything suddenly seems stuffed with a vast significance-consider that some other person somewhere is entangled with you in time, and is trying to give some push to the situation, some little help to make things better. Then put your shoulder to whatever wheel you have at hand, whatever moment you're in, and push too! Push like Galileo pushed! And together we may crab sideways toward the good. — Kim Stanley Robinson

I felt obligated to change music to art, the same way that Galileo proved the Earth was round to the world and that the Sun did not stand still. — Phil Spector

Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured. — Galileo Galilei

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself. — Galileo Galilei

Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler did not solve an old problem, they asked a new question, and in doing so they changed the whole basis on which the old questions had been framed. — Ken Robinson

Anthropology found its Galileo in Rivers, its Newton in Mauss. — Claude Levi-Strauss

He knows that in the whole history of the race of men no single great and high and beneficent thing was ever done for the souls and bodies, the hearts and the brains, of the children of this world, but a Mugwump started it and Mugwumps carried it to victory. And their names are the stateliest in history: Washington, Garrison, Galileo, Luther, Christ. Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world--and never will. — Mark Twain

Where are Shakespeare's imagination, Bacon's learning, Galileo's dream? Where is the sweet fancy of Sidney, the airy spirit of Fletcher, and Milton's thought severe? Methinks such things should not die and dissipate, when a hair can live for centuries, and a brick of Egypt will last three thousand years. I am content to believe that the mind of man survives, somehow or other, his clay. — Bryan Procter

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations. — Galileo Galilei

And because people loved conspiracy theories even back then, suddenly everyone became a member of the Illuminati: Galileo, the Babylonian goddess Lilith, Lucifer, and eventually even the Jesuits themselves. — Ferdinand Von Schirach

When Galileo made his astonishing discovery of mountains on the moon, his telescope didn't actually have enough magnifying power to support that finding. Instead, he recognized the zigzag pattern separating the light and dark areas of the moon. Other astronomers were looking through similar telescopes, but only Galileo "was able to appreciate the implications of the dark and light regions," Simonton notes. He had the necessary depth of experience in physics and astronomy, but also breadth of experience in painting and drawing. Thanks to artistic training in a technique called chiaroscuro, which focuses on representations of light and shade, Galileo was able to detect mountains where others did not. — Adam M. Grant

It is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth
whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from wha. — Galileo Galilei

I learned an important lesson: Never take the obvious for granted. Once upon a time, it was so obvious that a four-pound rock would plummet earthward twice as fast as a two-pound rock that no one ever bothered to test it. That is, until Galileo Galilei came along and took ten minutes to perform an elegantly simple experiment that yielded a counterintuitive result and changed the course of history. — V.S. Ramachandran