Johannes Kepler Quotes

Sky-bound was the mind, Earth-bound the body rests

Ships and sails proper for the heavenly air should be fashioned. Then there will also be people, who do not shrink from the dreary vastness of space.

The cause of the six-sided shape of a snowflake is none other than that of the ordered shapes of plants and of numerical constants; and since in them nothing occurs without supreme reason-not, to be sure, such as discursive reasoning discovers, but such as existed from the first in the Creators's design and is preserved from that origin to this day in the wonderful nature of animal faculties, I do not believe that even in a snowflake this ordered pattern exists at random.

Where there is matter, there is geometry.

My aim is to say that the machinery of the heavens is not like a divine animal but like a clock (and anyone who believes a clock has a soul gives the work the honour due to its maker) and that in it almost all the variety of motions is from one very simple magnetic force acting on bodies, as in the clock all motions are from a very simple weight.

A most unfailing experience ... of the excitement of sublunary (that is, human) natures by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.

If there is anything that can bind the mind of man to this dreary exile of our earthly home and can reconcile us with our fate so that one can enjoy living, - then it is verily the enjoyment of the mathematical sciences and astronomy.

Priusquam autem ad creationem, hoc est ad finem omnis disputationis, veniamus: tentanda omnia existimo.
However, before we come to [special] creation, which puts an end to all discussion: I think we should try everything else.

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.

The squares of the periodic times are to each other as the cubes of the mean distances.

Planets move in ellipses with the Sun at one focus.

It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.

When ships to sail the void between the stars have been built, there will step forth men to sail these ships.

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.

The Earth is round, and is inhabited on all sides, is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars.

Nature loves simplicity and unity.

It is a right, yes a duty, to search in cautious manner for the numbers, sizes, and weights, the norms for everything [God] has created. For He himself has let man take part in the knowledge of these things ... For these secrets are not of the kind whose research should be forbidden; rather they are set before our eyes like a mirror so that by examining them we observe to some extent the goodness and wisdom of the Creator.

When the storm rages and the shipwreck of the state threatens, we can do nothing more worthy than to sink the anchor of our peaceful studies into the ground of eternity.

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

For a long time I wanted to become a theologian ... now, however, behold how through my efforts God is being debated in astronomy.

When things are in order, if the cause of the orderliness cannot be deduced from the motion of the elements or from the composition of matter, it is quite possibly a cause possessing a mind.

Do we ask what profit the little bird hopes for in singing?

I myself, a professional mathematician, on re-reading my own work find it strains my mental powers to recall to mind from the figures the meanings of the demonstrations, meanings which I myself originally put into the figures and the text from my mind. But when I attempt to remedy the obscurity of the material by putting in extra words, I see myself falling into the opposite fault of becoming chatty in something mathematical.

Science is the process of thinking God's thoughts after Him.

Repudiating the sensible world, which he neither sees himself nor believes from those who have, the Peripatetic joins combat by childish quibbling in a world on paper, and denies the Sun shines because he himself is blind.

If this [the Mysterium cosmographicum] is published, others will perhaps make discoveries I might have reserved for myself. But we are all ephemeral creatures (and none more so than I). I have, therefore, for the Glory of God, who wants to be recognized from the book of Nature, that these things may be published as quickly as possible. The more others build on my work the happier I shall be.

Geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel.

I am a Lutheran astrologer, I throw away the nonsense and keep the hard kernel.

If God himself has waited six thousand years for someone to contemplate his works, my book can wait for a hundred.

I too play with symbols ... but I play in such a way that I do not forget that I am playing. For nothing is proved by symbols ... unless by sure reasons it can be demonstrated that they are not merely symbolic but are descriptions of the ways in which the two things are connected and of the causes of this connection.

I believe Divine Providence arranged matters in such a way that what I could not obtain with all my efforts was given to me through chance; I believe all the more that this is so as I have always prayed to God that he should make my plan succeed, if what Copernicus had said was the truth.

[God] is the kind Creator who brought forth nature out of nothing.

I had the intention of becoming a theologian ... but now I see how God is, by my endeavors, also glorified in astronomy, for 'the heavens declare the glory of God.'

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.

The Creator, the fountain of all wisdom, the approver of perpetual order, the eternal and superessential spring of geometry and harmonics.

In theology we must consider the predominance of authority; in philosophy the predominance of reason.

After the birth of printing books became widespread. Hence everyone throughout Europe devoted himself to the study of literature ... Every year, especially since 1563, the number of writings published in every field is greater than all those produced in the past thousand years. The Paracelsians have created medicine anew and the Copernicans have created astronomy anew. I really believe that at last the world is alive, indeed seething, and that the stimuli of these remarkable conjunctions did not act in vain.

Once miracles are admitted, every scientific explanation is out of the question.

If my false figures came near to the facts, this happened merely by chance ... These comments are not worth printing. Yet it gives me pleasure to remember how many detours I had to make, along how many walls I had to grope in the darkness of my ignorance until I found the door which lets in the light of the truth ... In such manner did I dream of the truth.

Without proper experiments I conclude nothing.

before the origin of things, geometry was coeternal with the Divine Mind

Wheresoever the earth may be placed, or whithersoever it may be carried by its animal faculty, heavy bodies will always be carried towards it.

We ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the universe. The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the skies so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.

If two stones were placed ... near each other, and beyond the sphere of influence of a third cognate body, these stones, like two magnetic needles, would come together in the intermediate point, each approaching the other by a space proportional to the comparative mass of the other.

So long as the mother, Ignorance, lives, it is not safe for Science the offspring, to divulge the hidden causes of things.

Some of what these pamphlets [of astrological forecasts] say will turn out to be true, but most of it time and experience will expose as empty and worthless. The latter part will be forgotten literally: written on the winds while the former will be carefully entered in people's memories, as is usual with the crowd.

Thus God himself was too kind to remain idle and began to play the game of signatures signing his likeness unto the world: therefore I chance to think that all nature and the graceful sky are symbolized in the art of Geometria.

The radius vector describes equal areas in equal times.

Great is God our Lord, great is His power and there is no end to His wisdom. Praise Him you heavens, glorify Him, sun and moon and you planets. For out of Him and through Him, and in Him are all things ... We know, oh, so little. To Him be the praise, the honor and the glory from eternity to eternity.

Geometry existed before the creation. It is co-eternal with the mind of God ... Geometry provided God with a model for the Creation ...

Discover the force of the skies O Men: once recognised it can be put to use.

As soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking on the moon and Jupiter ... Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.

I used to measure the skies, now I measure the shadows of Earth.
Although my mind was sky-bound, the shadow of my body lies here.
[Epitaph he composed for himself a few months before he died]

Eyesight should learn from reason.

I have consummated the work to which I pledged myself, using all the abilities that You (God) gave me; I have shown the glory of Your works to men, but if I have pursued my own glory among men while engaged in a work intended for Your glory, be merciful, be compassionate, and forgive.

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

Why are things as they are and not otherwise?

Geometry, which before the origin of things was coeternal with the divine mind and is God himself (for what could there be in God which would not be God himself?), supplied God with patterns for the creation of the world, and passed over to Man along with the image of God; and was not in fact taken in through the eyes.

… not my own opinion, but my wife's: Yesterday, when weary with writing, I was called to supper, and a salad I had asked for was set before me. 'It seems then,' I said, 'if pewter dishes, leaves of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of water, vinegar, oil and slices of eggs had been flying about in the air for all eternity, it might at last happen by chance that there would come a salad.' 'Yes,' responded my lovely, 'but not so nice as this one of mine.

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.

The roads by which men arrive at their insights into celestial matters seem to me almost as worthy of wonder as those matters in themselves.

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens ...

Nature uses as little as possible of anything.

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.

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

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.

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.

The moon ... is a mass, akin to the mass of the earth, attracts the waters by a magnetic force, not because they are liquid, but because they possess earthy substance, and so share in the movements of a heavy body.

I believe only and alone in the service of Jesus Christ. In him is all refuge and solace.