Galileo Galilei Short Quotes

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Where the senses fail us, reason must step in...

Galileo Galilei
Mathematics is the language in which God wrote the universe.

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

Galileo Galilei
The Bible teaches how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.

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

Galileo Galilei
Good things should be cast in bronze and bad ones cast to the winds.

Galileo Galilei
The universe has no timeless geography. The universe is a happening.

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

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

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

Galileo Galilei
If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the Inquisition might have let him alone.

Galileo Galilei
In science the authority embodied in the opinion of thousands is not worth a spark of reason in one man.

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

Galileo Galilei
No one will be able to read the great book of the Universe if he does not understand its language which is that of mathematics.

Galileo Galilei
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.

Galileo Galilei
I would rather discover a single fact, even a small one, than debate the great issues at length without discovering anything at all.

Galileo Galilei
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.

Galileo Galilei
All which facts were discovered and observed a few days ago by the help of a telescope devised by me, through God's grace first enlightening my mind.

Galileo Galilei
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
Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty.

Galileo Galilei
O telescope, instrument of much knowledge, more precious than any scepter! Is not he who holds thee in his hand made king and lord of the works of God?

Galileo Galilei
I dare not affirm that I am able to observe the phases of Mars; nonetheless, if I am not mistaken, I believe I have seen that it is not perfectly round.

Galileo Galilei
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.

Galileo Galilei
For my part I consider the earth very noble and admirable precisely because of the diverse alterations, changes, generations, etc. that occur in it incessantly.

Galileo Galilei
At times also I have been put to confusion and driven to despair of ever explaining something for which I could not account, but which my senses told me to be true.

Galileo Galilei
I cannot but be astonished that Sarsi should persist in trying to prove by means of witnesses something that I may see for myself at any time by means of experiment.

Galileo Galilei
Well, since paradoxes are at hand, let us see how it might be demonstrated that in a finite continuous extension it is not impossible for infinitely many voids to be found.

Galileo Galilei
[Copernicus] did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scriptures when they were rightly understood.

Galileo Galilei
SALVIATI: Now, since I wish to convince you by demonstrative reasoning rather than to persuade you by mere probabilities, I shall suppose that you are familiar with present-day mechanics...

Galileo Galilei
Philosophy itself cannot but benefit from our disputes, for if our conceptions prove true, new achievements will be made; if false, their refutation will further confirm the original doctrines.

Galileo Galilei