Johannes Kepler Quotes

Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. He is a key figure in the 17th-century scientific revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae. These works also provided one of the foundations for Newton's theory of universal gravitation.

Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague, and eventually the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II. He also taught mathematics in Linz, and was an adviser to General Wallenstein.

Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting telescope, and was mentioned in the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. He was a corresponding member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.Kepler lived in an era when there was no clear distinction between astronomy and astrology, but there was a strong division between astronomy and physics . Kepler also incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction and belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason.

Kepler described his new astronomy as "celestial physics", as "an excursion into Aristotle's Metaphysics", and as "a supplement to Aristotle's On the Heavens", transforming the ancient tradition of physical cosmology by treating astronomy as part of a universal mathematical physics.



Wikipedia  

✵ 27. December 1571 – 15. November 1630
Johannes Kepler photo

Works

Astronomia nova
Johannes Kepler
Harmonices Mundi
Johannes Kepler
Mysterium Cosmographicum
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler: 51   quotes 3   likes

Famous Johannes Kepler Quotes

“Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.”

Translated by Edward Rosen, Kepler's Conversation with Galileo's Sidereal Messenger (1965), p. 39
Unsourced variant translation: Provide ships or sails fit for the winds of heaven, and some will brave even that great void.
Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo (1610)
Context: It is not improbable, I must point out, that there are inhabitants not only on the moon but on Jupiter too, or (as was delightfully remarked at a recent gathering of certain philosophers) that those areas are now being unveiled for the first time. But as soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking. Who would once have thought that the crossing of the wide ocean was calmer and safer than of the narrow Adriatic Sea, Baltic Sea, or English Channel? Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse. Therefore, for the sake of those who, as it were, will presently be on hand to attempt this voyage, let us establish the astronomy, Galileo, you of Jupiter, and me of the moon.

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

As quoted in (K)new Words: Redefine Your Communication (2005) by Gloria Pierre, p. 147

“Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife.”
Temporis filia veritas; cui me obstetricari non pudet.

As quoted in The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A search for Salvation (2007) by Shafique N. Virani, p. 28

“I used to measure the heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth.
Although my mind was heaven-bound, the shadow of my body lies here.”

Epitaph he composed for himself a few months before he died, as quoted in Calculusː Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Unsourced variant: I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body's shadow lies here.

“Geometry has two great treasures: one is the Theorem of Phythagoras, the other the division of a line in extreme and mean ratio. The first we can compare to a mass of gold; the other we may call a precious jewel.”

As quoted by Karl Fink, Geschichte der Elementar-Mathematik (1890) translated as A Brief History of Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=3hkPAAAAIAAJ (1900, 1903) by Wooster Woodruff Beman, David Eugene Smith. Also see Carl Benjamin Boyer, A History of Mathematics (1968).
Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596)

Johannes Kepler Quotes about nature

“Indeed I reply in a single word to the sentiments of the saints on these questions about nature; in theology, to be sure, the force of authorities is to be weighed, in philosophy, however, that of causes.”

Therefore, a saint is Lactantius, who denied the rotundity of the earth; a saint is Augustine, who, admitting the rotundity, yet denied the antipodes; worthy of sainthood is the dutiful performance of moderns who, admitting the meagreness of the earth, yet deny its motion. But truth is more saintly for me, who demonstrate by philosophy, without violating my due respect for the doctors of the church, that the earth is both round and inhabited at the antipodes, and of the most despicable size, and finally is moved among the stars.
Vol. III, p. 156
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)

“Nature uses as little as possible of anything.”

Viking Book of Aphorisms: A Personal Selection (1920) by W. H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, p. 98; also in The Infinite Cosmos: Questions from the Frontiers of Cosmology (2006) by Joseph Silk

Johannes Kepler Quotes about God

“God gives every animal the means of saving its life—why object if he gives astrology to the astronomer?”

Vol. VIII, p. 705
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)

“Since geometry is co-eternal with the divine mind before the birth of things, God himself served as his own model in creating the world (for what is there in God which is not God?), and he with his own image reached down to humanity.”

Book IV, Ch. 1, as quoted in "Kepler's Astrology"in Kepler, Four Hundred Years (1975) edited by Arthur and Peter Beer.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)

“I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen.”

Book V, Introduction
Variant translation: It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
As quoted in The Martyrs of Science; or, the Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (1841) by David Brewster, p. 197. This has sometimes been misquoted as "It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
Variant translation: I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of heavenly harmony... I write a book for the present time, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for its readers, as God has also waited six thousand years for an onlooker.
As quoted in Calculus. Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Variant translation: I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far far away from the boundaries of Egypt. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice.; if you are enraged with me, I shall bear it. See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him.
Unsourced translation
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
Context: Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, 3 months ago broad daylight but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen — nothing holds me back. I can give myself up to the sacred frenzy, I can have the insolence to make a full confession to mortal men that I have stolen the golden vessel of the Egyptians to make from them a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt. If you forgive me I shall rejoice; if you are angry, I shall bear it; I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen.

“Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God. That share in it accorded to humans is one of the reasons that humanity is the image of God.”

Book III, Ch. 1 as quoted in "Astrology in Kepler's Cosmology" by Judith V. Field, in Astrology, Science, and Society: Historical Essays (1987) edited by P. Curry, p. 154
Geometry, coeternal with God and shining in the divine Mind, gave God the pattern... by which he laid out the world so that it might be best and most beautiful and finally most like the Creator.
As quoted in Kepler's Geometrical Cosmology (1988), p. 123
Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God. That share in it accorded to men is one of the reasons that Man is the image of God.
Unsourced variant
Harmonices Mundi (1618)

Johannes Kepler: Trending quotes

“If you want the exact moment in time, it was conceived mentally on 8th March in this year one thousand six hundred and eighteen, but submitted to calculation in an unlucky way, and therefore rejected as false, and finally returning on the 15th of May and adopting a new line of attack, stormed the darkness of my mind.”

Book V, Ch. 3 dates that his Third Law of Planetary Motion occurred to him, translation by E. J. Aiton, A. M. Duncan, and J. V. Field, The Harmony of the World (1997), Vol. 209, p. 411
Variant translation: A fresh assault overcame the darkness of my reason...
As quoted in Calculus. Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
Context: If you want the exact moment in time, it was conceived mentally on 8th March in this year one thousand six hundred and eighteen, but submitted to calculation in an unlucky way, and therefore rejected as false, and finally returning on the 15th of May and adopting a new line of attack, stormed the darkness of my mind. So strong was the support from the combination of my labour of seventeen years on the observations of Brahe and the present study, which conspired together, that at first I believed I was dreaming, and assuming my conclusion among my basic premises. But it is absolutely certain and exact that "the proportion between the periodic times of any two planets is precisely the sesquialterate proportion of their mean distances..."

“Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, 3 months ago broad daylight but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen — nothing holds me back.”

Book V, Introduction
Variant translation: It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
As quoted in The Martyrs of Science; or, the Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (1841) by David Brewster, p. 197. This has sometimes been misquoted as "It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
Variant translation: I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of heavenly harmony... I write a book for the present time, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for its readers, as God has also waited six thousand years for an onlooker.
As quoted in Calculus. Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Variant translation: I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far far away from the boundaries of Egypt. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice.; if you are enraged with me, I shall bear it. See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him.
Unsourced translation
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
Context: Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, 3 months ago broad daylight but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen — nothing holds me back. I can give myself up to the sacred frenzy, I can have the insolence to make a full confession to mortal men that I have stolen the golden vessel of the Egyptians to make from them a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt. If you forgive me I shall rejoice; if you are angry, I shall bear it; I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen.

Johannes Kepler Quotes

“I was almost driven to madness in considering and calculating this matter. I could not find out why the planet would rather go on an elliptical orbit. Oh, ridiculous me!”

Source: Astronomia nova (1609), Ch.58, as quoted in John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (2012)
Context: I was almost driven to madness in considering and calculating this matter. I could not find out why the planet would rather go on an elliptical orbit. Oh, ridiculous me! As the liberation in the diameter could not also be the way to the ellipse. So this notion brought me up short, that the ellipse exists because of the liberation. With reasoning derived from physical principles, agreeing with experience, there is no figure left for the orbit of the planet but a perfect ellipse.

“Nothing which consists of corporeal matter is absolutely light, but that is comparatively lighter which is rarer”

As quoted by Bryant, ibid.
Astronomia nova (1609)
Context: Nothing which consists of corporeal matter is absolutely light, but that is comparatively lighter which is rarer, either by its own nature, or by accidental heat. And it is not to be thought that light bodies are escaping to the surface of the universe while they are carried upwards, or that they are not attracted by the earth. They are attracted, but in a less degree, and so are driven outwards by the heavy bodies; which being done, they stop, and are kept by the earth in their own place.

“Just as the eye was made to see colours, and the ear to hear sounds, so the human mind was made to understand”

I. 31 as quoted by Edwin Arthur Burtt in The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)
Context: Just as the eye was made to see colours, and the ear to hear sounds, so the human mind was made to understand, not whatever you please, but quantity.

“I contemplate its beauty with incredible and ravishing delight”

Vol. VI, p. 116, Vol. VIII, p. 266ff.
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)
Context: I certainly know that I owe it [the Copernican theory] this duty, that as I have attested it as true in my deepest soul, and as I contemplate its beauty with incredible and ravishing delight, I should also publicly defend it to my readers with all the force at my command.

“Discover the force of the heavens O Men:
Once recognised it can be put to use:
No use could be seen in unknown things.”

Vim coeli reserate viri: venit agnita ad usus: Ignotae videas commoda nulla rei.

De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus [On the more Certain Fundamentals of Astrology or On Giving Astrology Sounder Foundations] (written 1601; published 1602) in Opera Omnia, Vol. 1, Heyder & Zimmer, 1858, p. 417 (title-page)

“The Earth sings Mi-Fa-Mi, so we can gather ever from this that Misery and Famine reign in our habitat.”

Book V, Ch. 6 as quoted in Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers (1959)
Harmonices Mundi (1618)

“No operation of addition or subtraction gives rise to diversity, but all are equally related to their pair of Terms, or Elements.”

Book I, sect. XX, as translated by Aiton, Duncan and Field, American Philosophical Society (1997), p 25.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)

“Without proper experiments I conclude nothing.”

Vol. V. p. 224, Vol. I, p. 143
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)

“[Quantity is the fundamental feature of things, ] the primarium accidens substantiae,' …prior to the other categories.”

Vol. VIII, p. 150
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)

“There is a force in the earth which causes the moon to move.”
In Terra inest virtus, quae Lunam del.

Essay dedicated to the Archduke Ferdinand, as quoted in Kepler (1993) by Max Caspar, Sect. II, Ch. 9, p. 110

“Wherever there are qualities there are likewise quantities, but not always vice versa.”

Vol. VIII, p. 47ff.
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia, ed. Christian Frisch (1858)

“The wisdom of the Lord is infinite as are also His glory and His power. Ye heavens, sing His praises., sun, moon, and planets, glorify Him in your ineffable language! Praise Him, celestial harmonies, and all ye who can comprehend them! And thou, my soul, praise thy Creator! It is by Him and in Him that all exist.”

Harmonices Mundi (1618)
Source: Reported in Methodist Review (1873), vol. 55, pp. 187–88.
Source: As quoted in Forty Thousand Sublime and Beautiful Thoughts (1904) ed. Charles Noel Douglas, p. 845. https://books.google.com/books?id=I0ZAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA845

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.”

Attributed to Kepler in some sources (though more recent sources often attribute it to Euclid), such as Mathematically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations edited by Carl C. Gaither and Alma E. Cavazos-Gaither (1998), p. 214 http://books.google.com/books?id=4abygoxLdwQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA214#v=onepage&q&f=false. The earliest publication located that attributes the quote to Kepler is the piece "The Mathematics of Elementary Chemistry" by Principal J. McIntosh of Fowler Union High School in California, which appeared in School Science and Mathematics, Volume VII ( 1907 http://books.google.com/books?id=kAEUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false), p. 383 http://books.google.com/books?id=kAEUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA383#v=onepage&q&f=false. Neither this nor any other source located gives a source in Kepler's writings, however, and in an earlier source, the 1888 Notes and Queries, Vol V., it is attributed on p. 165 http://books.google.com/books?id=0qYXAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA165#v=onepage&q&f=false to Plato. Expressions that relate geometry to the divine "mind of God" include comments in the Harmonices Mundi, e.g., "Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God", and "Since geometry is co-eternal with the divine mind before the birth of things, God himself served as his own model in creating the world".
Disputed quotes

“I was merely thinking God's thoughts after Him. Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it benefits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God.”

Google search of the second sentence, in quotes, yields a trio of 2019 books alone, most (there and in following) attributing it to Kepler—e.g., see Prof Basden's 2019 work, [Foundations and Practice of Research: Adventures with Dooyeweerd's Philosophy, The Complex Activity of Research [§10—4.1 Less-Obvious Pistic Functioning in Research], Advances in Research Methods, Abingdon-on-Thames, UK, Taylor & Francis-Routledge, 1st, 9781138720688, https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Practice-Research-Adventures-Dooyeweerds/dp/1138720682, February 25, 2020] (page 222).
While most citations of Kepler have been traced back to a translation of an original work, this quotation appears broadly without any such sourcing (e.g., Basden). Where it is sourced, the sources are either spurious (e.g., to the "New World Encyclopedia", a Paragon House/Unification Church product https://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/02/arts/unification-church-is-starting-a-publishing-house.html, wherein it is likewise unsourced), or to such sources as Henry Morris' 1988 creationist work, [Men of Science, Men of God: Great Scientists Who Believed the Bible, Green Forest, AR, Master Books, 21st reprint, 9780890510803, https://www.amazon.com/Men-Science-God-Henry-Morris/dp/0890510806, February 25, 2020] (page 21f).
Until a scholarly source is found that ties these statements to an original text from Kepler, they formally must be considered unattributed to Kepler.
Disputed quotes

“Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, 3 months ago broad daylight but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen — nothing holds me back. I can give myself up to the sacred frenzy, I can have the insolence to make a full confession to mortal men that I have stolen the golden vessel of the Egyptians to make from them a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt. If you forgive me I shall rejoice; if you are angry, I shall bear it; I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen.”

Book V, Introduction
Variant translation: It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
As quoted in The Martyrs of Science; or, the Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (1841) by David Brewster, p. 197. This has sometimes been misquoted as "It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
Variant translation: I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of heavenly harmony... I write a book for the present time, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for its readers, as God has also waited six thousand years for an onlooker.
As quoted in Calculus. Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596), Harmonices Mundi (1618)

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