Johannes Kepler Quotes

79 Sourced Quotes

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens. The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.

Johannes Kepler

I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.

Johannes Kepler

Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife.

Johannes Kepler

... wheresoever the earth may be placed, or whithersoever it may be carried by its animal faculty, heavy bodies will always be carried towards it.

Johannes Kepler

I used to measure the heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth.
Although my mind was heaven-bound, the shadow of my body lies here.

Johannes Kepler

I certainly know that I owe it [the Copernican theory] this duty, that as I have attested it as true in my deepest soul, and as I contemplate its beauty with incredible and ravishing delight, I should also publicly defend it to my readers with all the force at my command.

Johannes Kepler

Depend upon it, the universe will never really be understood unless it may be sometime resolved into an ordered multiplicity and made to own itself an everlasting drama of the calculus.

Johannes Kepler

Prolixity of phrases has it own obscurity, no less than terse brevity. The latter evades the mind's eye while the former distracts it; the one lacks the light while the other overwhelms with superfluous glitter; the latter does not arouse the sight while the former quite dazzles it.

Johannes Kepler

Nothing which consists of corporeal matter is absolutely light, but that is comparatively lighter which is rarer, either by its own nature, or by accidental heat. And it is not to be thought that light bodies are escaping to the surface of the universe while they are carried upwards, or that they are not attracted by the earth. They are attracted, but in a less degree, and so are driven outwards by the heavy bodies; which being done, they stop, and are kept by the earth in their own place.

Johannes Kepler

Every corporeal substance, so far forth as it is corporeal, has a natural fitness for resting in every place where it may be situated by itself beyond the sphere of influence of a body cognate with it.

Johannes Kepler

Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, 3 months ago broad daylight but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen — nothing holds me back. I can give myself up to the sacred frenzy, I can have the insolence to make a full confession to mortal men that I have stolen the golden vessel of the Egyptians to make from them a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt. If you forgive me I shall rejoice; if you are angry, I shall bear it; I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen.

Johannes Kepler

I am well aware how fond you are of Nothing, not so much for low price as for the sport, as delightful as it is witty, that it affords your pert sparrow; and so I can really guess that the closer a gift comes to Nothing the more welcome and acceptable it will be to you.

Johannes Kepler

There are as many comets in the sky as fishes in the ocean...

Johannes Kepler

I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body's shadow lies here.

Johannes Kepler

If two stones were placed... near each other, and beyond the sphere of influence of a third cognate body, these stones, like two magnetic needles, would come together in the intermediate point, each approaching the other by a space proportional to the comparative mass of the other.

Johannes Kepler

If the moon and earth were not retained in their orbits by their animal force or some other equivalent, the earth would mount to the moon by a fifty-fourth part of their distance, and the moon fall towards the earth through the other fifty-three parts, and they would there meet, assuming, however, that the substance of both is of the same density.

Johannes Kepler

The heavenly bodies are nothing but a continuous song for several voices (perceived by the intellect, not by the ear); a music which... sets landmarks in the immeasurable flow of time. It is therefore, no longer surprising that man, in imitation of his creator, has at last discovered the art of figured song, which was unknown to the ancients. Man wanted to reproduce the continuity of cosmic time... to obtain a sample test of the delight of the Divine Creator in His works, and to partake of his joy by making music in the imitation of God.

Johannes Kepler

Astronomy has two ends, to save the appearances and to contemplate the true form of the edifice of the world.

Johannes Kepler

When things are in order, if the cause of the orderliness cannot be deduced from the motion of the elements or from the composition of matter, it is quite possibly a cause possessing a mind.

Johannes Kepler

After the birth of printing books became widespread. Hence everyone throughout Europe devoted himself to the study of literature. Hence many universities came into existence, and at once so many learned men appeared that the authority of those who clung to barbarism soon declined.

Johannes Kepler