119 Quotes by Johannes Kepler

"On how the motion of a planet defines its sphere: ... and thus it comes about gradually by the linking and accumulation of a great many revolutions that a kind of concave sphere is displayed, having the same center as the Sun, just as by a great many circles of silken thread, linked with each other and wound together, the dwelling of a silkworm is made."

"Do we ask what profit the little bird hopes for in singing?"

"In theology we must consider the predominance of authority; in philosophy the predominance of reason."

"So long as the mother, Ignorance, lives, it is not safe for Science the offspring, to divulge the hidden causes of things."

"Why waste words? Geometry existed before the Creation, is co-eternal with the mind of God, is God himself (what exists in God that is not God himself?): geometry provided God with a model for the Creation and was implanted into man, together with God's own likeness - and not merely conveyed to his mind through the eyes."

"Now, as God the maker play'd he taught the game to Nature whom he created in his image; taught her the selfsame game which he played to her."

"I measured the skies, now the shadows I measure, Sky-bound was the mind, earth-bound the body rests. [Kepler's epitaph]"

"Without proper experiments I conclude nothing."

"If the earth were not round, heavy bodies would not tend from every side in a straight line towards the center of the earth, but to different points from different sides."

"The sphere of the attractive virtue which is in the moon extends as far as the earth, and entices up the waters; but as the moon flies rapidly across the zenith, and the waters cannot follow so quickly, a flow of the ocean is occasioned in the torrid zone towards the westward."