44 quotes
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.
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia (1858)
Every corporeal substance, so far forth as it is corporeal, has a natural fitness for resting in every place where it may be situated by itself beyond the sphere of influence of a body cognate with it.
Astronomia nova (1609)
Gravity is a mutual affection between cognate bodies towards union or conjunction (similar in kind to the magnetic virtue), so that the earth attracts a stone much rather than the stone seeks the earth.
Astronomia nova (1609)
Vim coeli reserate viri: venit agnita ad usus: Ignotae videas commoda nulla rei.
De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus (1601)
...wheresoever the earth may be placed, or whithersoever it may be carried by its animal faculty, heavy bodies will always be carried towards it.
Astronomia nova (1609)
The soul of the newly born baby is marked for life by the pattern of the stars at the moment it comes into the world, unconsciously remembers it, and remains sensitive to the return of configurations of a similar kind.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
Some will brave even that great void.
Temporis filia veritas; cui me obstetricari non pudet.
[N]either this nor that supposition is worthy of the name of an astronomical hypothesis, but rather that which is implied in both alike.
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia (1858)
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.
Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596)
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.
Harmonices Mundi (1618)
The sphere of the attractive virtue which is in the moon extends as far as the earth, and entices up the waters; but as the moon flies rapidly across the zenith, and the waters cannot follow so quickly, a flow of the ocean is occasioned in the torrid zone towards the westward.
Astronomia nova (1609)
But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited? … Are we or they Lords of the World? … And how are all things made for man?
[W]ithout proper experiments I conclude nothing...
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia (1858)
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.
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia (1858)
[Quantity is the fundamental feature of things,] the primarium accidens substantiae,' ...prior to the other categories.
Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia (1858)
If the attractive virtue of the moon extends as far as the earth, it follows with greater reason that the attractive virtue of the earth extends as far as the moon and much farther; and, in short, nothing which consists of earthly substance anyhow constituted although thrown up to any height, can ever escape the powerful operation of this attractive virtue.
Astronomia nova (1609)
I propose to show that God, in creating the universe and arranging the spheres, had in view the five regular solids of geometry, and fixed by their dimensions the number, proportions and motions of the spheres. Take the sphere of the earth as a unit and circumscribe it with a regular dodecahedron. The sphere that contains this dodecahedron is the sphere of Mars.
Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596)
The die is cast; I have written my book; it will be read either in the present age or by posterity, it matters not which; it may well await a reader, since God has waited six thousand years for an interpreter of his words.
I believe it was an act of Divine Providence that I arrived just at the time when Longomontanus [Tycho Brahe's assistant before Kepler] was occupied with Mars. For Mars alone enables us to penetrate the secrets of astronomy which otherwise would remain forever hidden from us.
Astronomia nova (1609)