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| Line engraving of Johannes Kepler by Frederick Mackenzie |
"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 nourishment."
"I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses."
"The aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics."
"The ways by which men arrive at knowledge of the celestial things are hardly less wonderful than the nature of these things themselves."
"The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics."
"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."
"I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle for my God from them, far indeed from the borders of Egypt."
"My aim is to show that the celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism but rather to a clockwork."
"Nature uses as little as possible of anything."
"I wanted to become a theologian; for a long time I was unhappy. Now, behold, God is praised by my work even in astronomy."
"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."
"I used to measure the heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. Although my mind was sky-bound, the shadow of my body lies here."
"I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of the heavenly harmony."
"God wanted to have over the sky an argument to convince the atheists."
"To him who looks at the world rationally, the world looks rationally back."
"I demonstrate by means of philosophy that the Earth is round, and is inhabited on every side; that it is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars."
"O telescope, instrument of much knowledge, more precious than any sceptre!"
"The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do."
"Nature likes simple laws such as those which govern the motion of the planets."
"The roads that lead man to knowledge are as wonderful as that knowledge itself."
"If there is anything that can bind the heavenly mind of man to this dusty 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."
"I prefer a short life with width to a narrow one with length."
"The ways by which men arrive at knowledge of the celestial things are hardly less wonderful than the nature of these things themselves."
"Discover the force of the heavens O Men: once recognized it can be put to use."
"Truth is the daughter of time."
"The geometrical things have a reality which is independent of our knowledge of them."
"I am moved by the geometry of the universe, by the shapes of the stars and the planets, and by the perfection of the forms in nature."
"I believe the geometric proportion served the creator as an idea when he introduced the continuous generation of similar objects from similar objects."
"May God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole universe and all of it is unfinished."