Galileo Galilei Quotes

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

Showing a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth, they sought to deny and disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them.

Measure what can be measured, and make measureable what cannot be measured.

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

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

You cannot teach a person something he does not already know, you can only bring what he does know to his awareness.

With regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them.

In regard to the philosophers, if they be true philosophers, i.e., lovers of truth, they should not be irritated that the earth moves. Rather, if they realize that they have held a false belief, they should thank those have shown them the truth; and if their opinion stands firm that the earth doesn’t move, they will have reason to boast than be angered.

And believe me, if I were again beginning my studies, I should follow the advice of Plato and start with the mathematical sciences, which proceed very cautiously and admit nothing as established until it has been rigorously demonstrated.

But, because my private lectures and domestic pupils are a great hinderance and intteruption of my studies, I wish to live entirely exempt from the former, and in great measure from the latter. … in short, I should wish to gain my bread from my writings.

I have been judged vehemently suspect of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the sun in the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the earth is not at the center of same, and that it does move. Wishing however, to remove from the minds of your Eminences and all faithful Christians this vehement suspicion reasonably conceived against me, I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I curse and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally all and every error, heresy, and sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church. (Quoted in Shea and Artigas 194)

In time you may discover everything that can be discovered, and still your progress will only be progress away from humanity. The distance between you and them can one day become so great that your joyous cry over some new gain could be answered by an universal shriek of horror.