Great Throughts Treasury

"My greatest desire is that I may perceive the God whom I find everywhere in the external world, in like manner also within and inside myself."

"I demonstrate by means of philosophy that the earth is round, and is inhabited on all sides; that it is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars."

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

"Nature uses as little as possible of anything."

"Geometry is unique and eternal, a reflection from the mind of God. That mankind shares in it is because man is an image of God."

"The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics."

"Planets move in ellipses with the Sun at one focus."

"The soul of the newly born baby is marked for life by the pattern of the stars at the moment it comes into the world, unconsciously remembers it, and remains sensitive to the return of configurations of a similar kind."

"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."

"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."

"I used to measure the heavens, now I shall measure the shadows of the Earth. Although my soul was from heaven, the shadow of my body lies here. {Kepler's Epitaph]"