Nicolaus Copernicus Quotes

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Thus indeed, as though seated on a royal throne, the sun governs the family of planets revolving around it.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.

Nicolaus Copernicus
First of all, we must note that the universe is spherical.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Pouring forth its seas everywhere, then, the ocean envelops the earth and fills its deeper chasms.

Nicolaus Copernicus
To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful workings of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance cannot be more grateful than knowledge.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Accordingly, since nothing prevents the earth from moving, I suggest that we should now consider also whether several motions suit it, so that it can be regarded as one of the planets. For, it is not the center of all the revolutions.

Nicolaus Copernicus
For when a ship is floating calmly along, the sailors see its motion mirrored in everything outside, while on the other hand they suppose that they are stationary, together with everything on board. In the same way, the motion of the earth can unquestionably produce the impression that the entire universe is rotating.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.

Nicolaus Copernicus
We find then in this arrangement an admirable harmony of the world, and a dependable, harmonious interconnexion of the motion and the size of the paths, such as otherwise cannot be discovered. For here the penetrating observer can note why the forward and the retrograde movement of Jupiter appears greater than that of Saturn, and smaller than that of Mars, and again greater with Venus than with Mercury; and why such retrogression appears oftener with Saturn than with Jupiter, less often with Mars and Venus than with Mercury. Moreover, why Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, when they rise in the evening, appear greater than when they disappear and reappear [with the sun]... And all this results from the same cause, namely the motion of the earth.

Nicolaus Copernicus
I can well appreciate, Holy Father, that as soon as certain people realise that in these books which I have written about the Revolutions of the spheres of the universe I attribute certain motions to the globe of the Earth, they will at once clamour for me to be hooted off the stage with such an opinion.

Nicolaus Copernicus
I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Yet if anyone believes that the earth rotates, surely he will hold that its motion is natural, not violent.

Nicolaus Copernicus
The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison with the size of the heavens.

Nicolaus Copernicus
For I am not so enamoured of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them.

Nicolaus Copernicus
There is no one center of all the celestial circles or spheres.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Although all the good arts serve to draw man's mind away from vices and lead it toward better things, this function can be more fully performed by this art, which also provides extraordinary intellectual pleasure.

Nicolaus Copernicus
We are taught all this [the motion of the earth on its axis and around the sun] by the order of succession, in which those phenomena (various planetary happenings) follow each other, and by the harmony of the world, if we will only, as the saying goes, look at the matter with both eyes.

Nicolaus Copernicus
The strongest affection and utmost zeal should, I think, promote the studies concerned with the most beautiful objects. This is the discipline that deals with the universe's divine revolutions, the stars' motions, sizes, distances, risings and settings... for what is more beautiful than heaven?

Nicolaus Copernicus
We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Therefore I would not have it unknown to Your Holiness, the the only thing which induced me to look for another way of reckoning the movements of the heavenly bodies was that I knew that mathematicians by no means agree in their investigation thereof.

Nicolaus Copernicus