Galileo Galilei: Trending quotes

From Italian: La filosofia è scritta in questo grandissimo libro, che continuamente ci sta aperto innanzi agli occhi (io dico l'Universo), ma non si può intendere, se prima non il sapere a intender la lingua, e conoscer i caratteri ne quali è scritto. Egli è scritto in lingua matematica, e i caratteri son triangoli, cerchi ed altre figure geometriche, senza i quali mezzi è impossibile intenderne umanamente parola; senza questi è un aggirarsi vanamente per un oscuro labirinto.
Other translations:
Philosophy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes — I mean the universe — but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written. This book is written in the mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.
The Assayer (1623), as translated by Thomas Salusbury (1661), p. 178, as quoted in The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (2003) by Edwin Arthur Burtt, p. 75.
Philosophy is written in this grand book — I mean the universe — which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.
As translated in The Philosophy of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1966) by Richard Henry Popkin, p. 65
Il Saggiatore (1623)
Source: Galilei, Galileo. Il Saggiatore: Nel Quale Con Bilancia Efquifita E Giufta Si Ponderano Le Cofe Contenute Nellalibra Astronomica E Filosofica Di Lotario Sarsi Sigensano, Scritto in Forma Di Lettera All'Illustr. Et Rever. Mons. D. Virginio Cesarini. In Roma: G. Mascardi, 1623. Google Play. Google. Web. 22 Dec. 2015. <https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=-U0ZAAAAYAAJ>.

Variant translation: Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, because things came first, and their names subsequently.
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Source: As quoted in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957) by Stillman Drake, p. 92

Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences (1638); Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno à due nuove scienze, as translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio (1914)
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Source: Discorsi E Dimostrazioni Matematiche: Intorno a Due Nuoue Scienze, Attenenti Alla Mecanica & I Movimenti Locali

Letter to Johannes Kepler (1610), as quoted in The Crime of Galileo (1955) by Giorgio De Santillana
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Source: Frammenti e lettere
Context: My dear Kepler, what would you say of the learned here, who, replete with the pertinacity of the asp, have steadfastly refused to cast a glance through the telescope? What shall we make of this? Shall we laugh, or shall we cry?

The quote is widely misattributed to Galilei, but is actually from two French scholars, Antoine-Augustin Cournot and Thomas-Henri Martin. See "Der messende Luchs: Zwei verbreitete Fehler in der Galilei-Literatur" by Andreas Kleinert in "NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin" May 2009, Volume 17, Issue 2, pp 199–206.
Attributed

His description of wine, as quoted in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957) by Stillman Drake, p. 5
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Variant: Light held together by moisture.

Source: The Starry Messenger, Venice 1610: "From Doubt to Astonishment"

As quoted in Angels in the workplace: stories and inspirations for creating a new world of work (1999) by Melissa Giovagnoli
Attributed

Third letter on sunspots (December 1612) to Mark Wesler (1558 - 1614), as quoted in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957) by Stillman Drake, p. 134 - 135; Italian text online at Liber Liber http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/g/galilei/lettere/html/lett08c.htm, also from IntraText http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ITA0188/_PQ.HTM.<br>Variant translation: In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.<br>As quoted in Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859) by François Arago, as translated by Baden Powell, Robert Grant, and William Fairbairn, p. 365 <br class="br">Other quotes <br class="br">Variant: In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. <br class="br">Context: 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.

As quoted in How to Win Friends and Influence People (1935) by Dale Carnegie, p. 117; also paraphrased as &quot;You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it for himself.&quot; Attributions are found as early as 1882. <br class="br">Attributed <br class="br">Source: Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=h70_AQAAMAAJ&amp;pg=PA476&amp;dq=You+cannot+teach+a+man+anything;+you+can+only+help+him+find+it+within+himself&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMI39Gmss_gyAIVRNRjCh1Q2wGN#v=onepage&amp;q=%22You%20cannot%20teach%22&amp;f=false

Letter to Johannes Kepler (1596), as quoted in The Story of Civilization : The Age of Reason Begins, 1558-1648 (1935) by Will Durant, p. 603
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Context: I esteem myself happy to have as great an ally as you in my search for truth. I will read your work … all the more willingly because I have for many years been a partisan of the Copernican view because it reveals to me the causes of many natural phenomena that are entirely incomprehensible in the light of the generally accepted hypothesis. To refute the latter I have collected many proofs, but I do not publish them, because I am deterred by the fate of our teacher Copernicus who, although he had won immortal fame with a few, was ridiculed and condemned by countless people (for very great is the number of the stupid).

Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615)
Context: The passage of time has revealed to everyone the truths that I previously set forth; and, together with the truth of the facts, there has come to light the great difference in attitude between those who simply and dispassionately refused to admit the discoveries to be true, and those who combined with their incredulity some reckless passion of their own. Men who were well grounded in astronomical and physical science were persuaded as soon as they received my first message. There were others who denied them or remained in doubt only because of their novel and unexpected character, and because they had not yet had the opportunity to see for themselves. These men have by degrees come to be satisfied. But some, besides allegiance to their original error, possess I know not what fanciful interest in remaining hostile not so much toward the things in question as toward their discoverer. No longer being able to deny them, these men now take refuge in obstinate silence, but being more than ever exasperated by that which has pacified and quieted other men, they divert their thoughts to other fancies and seek new ways to damage me.<!-- ¶4

Author, Third Day. Change of Position<!--p.153 [190]-->
Dialogues and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences (1638)
Context: My purpose is to set forth a very new science dealing with a very ancient subject. There is, in nature, perhaps nothing older than motion, concerning which the books written by philosophers are neither few nor small; nevertheless I have discovered by experiment some properties of it which are worth knowing and which have not hitherto been either observed or demonstrated. Some superficial observations have been made, as, for instance, that the free motion [naturalem motum] of a heavy falling body is continuously accelerated; but to just what extent this acceleration occurs has not yet been announced; for so far as I know, no one has yet pointed out that the distances traversed, during equal intervals of time, by a body falling from rest, stand to one another in the same ratio as the odd numbers beginning with unity.

Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615)
Context: Nature … is inexorable and immutable; she never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, or cares a whit whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men. For that reason it appears that nothing physical which sense-experience sets before our eyes, or which necessary demonstrations prove to us, ought to be called in question (much less condemned) upon the testimony of biblical passages which may have some different meaning beneath their words. For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature's actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible.<!-- ¶18