Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, mathematician, engineer, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the scientific revolution during the Renaissance. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments.
If you like the following quotes by Galileo Galilei, we recommend that you read more of his writings, about his life and his significant contribution to the Scientific Revolution.
1) “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.” (Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina)
2) “For in the sciences the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. Besides, the modern observations deprive all former writers of any authority, since if they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge.” (Frammenti e lettere)
3) “Passion is the genesis of genius.”
4) “It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the Moon.” (The Starry Messenger, Venice 1610: "From Doubt to Astonishment)
5) “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?” (Frammenti e lettere)
6) “With regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them.”
7) “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.” (Discorsi E Dimostrazioni Matematiche: Intorno a Due Nuoue Scienze, Attenenti Alla Mecanica & I Movimenti Locali)
8) “In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man.”
9) “It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.”
10) “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.” (Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo)
11) “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”
12) “The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.”
13) “There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly.”
14) “By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.”
15) “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.”
16) “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.”
17) “I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.”
18) “Wine is sunlight, held together by water.”
19) “E pur si muove. (Albeit ιt does move.)”
[What Galileo purportedly muttered after torturers forced him to recant his theory that the earth orbits the sun.]”
20) “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
21) “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.”
22) “Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so”
23) “To our natural and human reason, I say that these terms ‘large,’ ‘small,’ ‘immense,’ ‘minute,’ etc. are not absolute but relative; the same thing in comparison with various others may be called at one time ‘immense’ and at another ‘imperceptible.” (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican)
24) “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?” (Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo)
25) “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.”
Related Books:
- The Essential Galileo
- Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo
- Selected Writings (Oxford World's Classics)
- On Sunspots
- Thus Spoke Galileo: The great scientist's ideas and their relevance to the present day
- Galileo's Logical Treatises: A Translation, with Notes and Commentary, of his Appropriated Latin Questions on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics Book II ... in the Philosophy and History of Science)
- Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof: The Background, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science)
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