44 quotes
Discover the force of the heavens O Men: Once recognised it can be put to use: No use could be seen in unknown things.
De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus (1601)
Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife.
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.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
God gives every animal the means of saving its life—why object if he gives astrology to the astronomer?
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia (1858)
Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.
Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo (1610)
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.
Wherever there are qualities there are likewise quantities, but not always vice versa.
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia (1858)
It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.
No operation of addition or subtraction gives rise to diversity, but all are equally related to their pair of Terms, or Elements.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
Nature uses as little as possible of anything.
There is a force in the earth which causes the moon to move.
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.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
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 enrichment.
If the earth were not round, heavy bodies would not tend from every side in a straight line towards the center of the earth, but to different points from different sides.
Astronomia nova (1609)
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.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
The Earth sings Mi-Fa-Mi, so we can gather ever from this that Misery and Famine reign in our habitat.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
If the earth should cease to attract its waters to itself all the waters of the sea would be raised and would flow to the body of the moon.
Astronomia nova (1609)
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!
Astronomia nova (1609)
So long as the mother, Ignorance, lives, it is not safe for Science, the offspring, to divulge the hidden causes of things.