69 Insightful Quotes By Galileo Galilei, The Father Of Science

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.

Never

  

The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.

  

To understand the Universe, you must understand the language in which it's written, the language of Mathematics.

  

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

  

Nonetheless, it moves.

  

And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will? When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others? When people devoid of whatsoever competence are made judges over experts and are granted authority to treat them as they please? These are the novelties which are apt to bring about the ruin of commonwealths and the subversion of the state.

  

Knowing thyself, that is the greatest wisdom.

  

Nothing occurs contrary to nature except the impossible, and that never occurs.

Never

  

The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens.

  

If you could see the earth illuminated when you were in a place as dark as night, it would look to you more splendid than the moon.

  

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

Me

  

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

  

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

  

Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.

  

Two truths cannot contradict one another.

  

I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them.

Think

  

Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new.

Experience , Me

  

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.

Together

  

It seems to me that it was well said by Madama Serenissima, and insisted on by your reverence, that the Holy Scripture cannot err, and that the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. But I should have in your place added that, though Scripture cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways; and one error in particular would be most grave and most frequent, if we always stopped short at the literal signification of the words.

Me

  

Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes — I mean the universe — but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written

  

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

  

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.

Never

  

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads.

Me

  

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

  

Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold, with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead, and with their wings exceedingly small. He did not, and that ought to show something. It is only in order to shield your ignorance that you put the Lord at every turn to the refuge of a miracle.

Miracle

  

Holy Scripture could never lie or err...its decrees are of absolute and inviolable truth.

Never

  

Mathematics is the key and door to the sciences.

  

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

  

Scripture is a book about going to Heaven. It's not a book about how the heavens go.

  

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

  

The greatest wisdom is to get to know oneself.

  

Passion is the genesis of genius.

  

The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.

  

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

  

The number of people that can reason well is much smaller than those that can reason badly. If reasoning were like hauling rocks, then several reasoners might be better than one. But reasoning isn't like hauling rocks, it's like, it's like racing, where a single, galloping Barbary steed easily outruns a hundred wagon-pulling horses.

Like

  

I wish, my dear Kepler, that we could have a good laugh together at the extraordinary stupidity of the mob. What do you think of the foremost philosophers of this University? In spite of my oft-repeated efforts and invitations, they have refused, with the obstinacy of a glutted adder, to look at the planets or the Moon or my glass [telescope].

Think , Together

  

Wine is sunlight, held together by water.

Together

  

There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly.

  

It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the Moon.

  

Nature...does not act by means of many things when it can do so by means of a few.

  

Eppur si muove.

  

Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured.

  

In regard to the philosophers, if they be true philosophers, i.e., lovers of truth, they should not be irritated that the earth moves. Rather, if they realize that they have held a false belief, they should thank those have shown them the truth; and if their opinion stands firm that the earth doesn't move, they will have reason to boast than be angered.

  

With regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them.

  

By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.

  

See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary.

  

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

  

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

  

Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards.

  

To be humane, we must ever be ready to pronounce that wise, ingenious and modest statement 'I do not know'.

  

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

  

E pur si muove. (Albeit It does move.) [What Galileo purportedly muttered after torturers forced him to recant his theory that the earth orbits the sun.]

  

(T)he increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts.

  

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so

  

The sun, with all he planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do.

  

You cannot teach a person anything, you can only help him find it within himself.

  

In the future, there will be opened a gateway and a road to a large and excellent science into which minds more piercing than mine shall penetrate to recesses still deeper.

  

E pur si muove. (It still moves.) (What Galileo purportedly muttered after torturers forced him to recant his theory that the earth orbits the sun.)

  

Man kann einen Menschen nichts lehren. Man kann ihm nur helfen, es in sich selbst zu finden!

  

Who indeed will set bounds to human ingenuity? Who will assert that everything in the universe capable of being perceived is already discovered and known?

  

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

  

The sun with all the planets around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do.

  

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.

  

We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.

  

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.

Me

  

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

Think

  

The greatness and the glory of God shine forth marvelously in all His works, and is to be read above all in the open book of the heavens.

  

Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe

  

And, believe me, if I were again beginning my studies, I should follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.

Me