Johannes Kepler Quotes

79 Sourced Quotes

Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void.... So, for those who will come shortly to attempt this journey, let us establish the astronomy: Galileo, you of Jupiter, I of the moon.

Johannes Kepler
Some of what these pamphlets [of astrological forecasts] say will turn out to be true, but most of it time and experience will expose as empty and worthless. The latter part will be forgotten [written on the winds] while the former will be carefully entered in people's memories, as is usual with the crowd.

Johannes Kepler
[Quantity is the fundamental feature of things,] the 'primarium accidens substantiae,'... prior to the other categories.

Johannes Kepler
If there is anything that can bind the heavenly mind of man to this dreary exile of our earthly home and can reconcile us with our fate so than one can enjoy living, — then it is verily the enjoyment of the mathematical sciences and astronomy.

Johannes Kepler
The very truth, and the nature of things, though repudiated and ordered into exile, sneaked in again through the back door, to be received by me under an unwonted guise.

Johannes Kepler
Discover the force of the heavens O Men: Once recognized it can be put to use.

Johannes Kepler
It is true that a divine voice, which enjoins humans to study astronomy, is expressed in the world itself, not in words or syllables, but in things themselves and in the conformity of the human intellect and senses with the sequence of celestial bodies and their disposition.

Johannes Kepler
As in every discipline, so in astronomy, too, the conclusions that we teach the reader are seriously intended, and our discussion is no mere game.

Johannes Kepler
Yet in this my stars were not Mercury as morning star in the angle of the seventh house, in quartile with Mars, but they were Copernicus, they were Tycho Brahe, without whose books of observations everything which has now been brought by me into the brightest daylight would lie buried in darkness.

Johannes Kepler
The earth is the sphere, the measure of all; round it describe a dodecahedron; the sphere including this will be Mars. Round Mars describe a tetrahedron; the sphere including this will be Jupiter. Describe a cube round Jupiter; the sphere including this will be Saturn. Now, inscribe in the earth an icosahedron, the sphere inscribed in it will be Venus: inscribe an octahedron in Venus: the circle inscribed in it will be Mercury.

Johannes Kepler
Geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel.

Johannes Kepler
I was almost driven to madness in considering and calculating this matter. I could not find out why the planet would rather go on an elliptical orbit. Oh, ridiculous me! As the liberation in the diameter could not also be the way to the ellipse. So this notion brought me up short, that the ellipse exists because of the liberation. With reasoning derived from physical principles, agreeing with experience, there is no figure left for the orbit of the planet but a perfect ellipse.

Johannes Kepler
I wanted to become a theologian; for a long time I was unhappy. Now, behold, God is praised by my work even in astronomy.

Johannes Kepler
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.

Johannes Kepler
If you want the exact moment in time, it was conceived mentally on 8th March in this year one thousand six hundred and eighteen, but submitted to calculation in an unlucky way, and therefore rejected as false, and finally returning on the 15th of May and adopting a new line of attack, stormed the darkness of my mind. So strong was the support from the combination of my labour of seventeen years on the observations of Brahe and the present study, which conspired together, that at first I believed I was dreaming, and assuming my conclusion among my basic premises. But it is absolutely certain and exact that "the proportion between the periodic times of any two planets is precisely the sesquialterate proportion of their mean distances..."

Johannes Kepler
Indeed I reply in a single word to the sentiments of the saints on these questions about nature; in theology, to be sure, the force of authorities is to be weighed, in philosophy, however, that of causes. Therefore, a saint is Lactantius, who denied the rotundity of the earth; a saint is Augustine, who, admitting the rotundity, yet denied the antipodes; worthy of sainthood is the dutiful performance of moderns who, admitting the meagreness of the earth, yet deny its motion. But truth is more saintly for me, who demonstrate by philosophy, without violating my due respect for the doctors of the church, that the earth is both round and inhabited at the antipodes, and of the most despicable size, and finally is moved among the stars.

Johannes Kepler
I also ask you my friends not to condemn me entirely to the mill of mathematical calculations, and allow me time for philosophical speculations, my only pleasures.

Johannes Kepler
If the earth should cease to attract its waters to itself all the waters of the sea would be raised and would flow to the body of the moon.

Johannes Kepler
The Earth sings Mi-Fa-Mi, so we can gather ever from this that Misery and Famine reign in our habitat.

Johannes Kepler