Galileo Galilei Quotes

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself. Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured. They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment and growth of the arts; not their dimination or destruction. It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved. There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly. I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Passion is the genesis of genius. Wine is sunlight, held together by water. In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox. All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. For in the sciences the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. Besides, the modern observations deprive all former writers of any authority, since if they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge. I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary. Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe. The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. Long experience has taught me this about the status of mankind with regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them, while on the other hand to know and understand a multitude of things renders men cautious in passing judgment upon anything new. With regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them. It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the Moon. Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards. We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves. The sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do. In the future, there will be opened a gateway and a road to a large and excellent science into which minds more piercing than mine shall penetrate to recesses still deeper. 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.

Galileo Galilei

1564 - 1642