Johannes Kepler Quotes

On How The Motion Of A Planet Defines Its Sphere: ... And Thus It Comes About Gradually By The Linking And Accumulation Of A Great Many Revolutions That A Kind Of Concave Sphere Is Displayed, Having The Same Center As The Sun, Just As By A Great Many Circles Of Silken Thread, Linked With Each Other And Wound Together, The Dwelling Of A Silkworm Is Made.

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.

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.

I Am Much Occupied With The Investigation Of The Physical Causes [of Motions In The Solar System]. My Aim In This Is To Show That The Celestial Machine Is To Be Likened Not To A Divine Organism But Rather To A Clockwork ... Insofar As Nearly All The Manifold Movements Are Carried Out By Means Of A Single, Quite Simple Magnetic Force. This Physical Conception Is To Be Presented Through Calculation And Geometry.

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.

But Although The Attractive Virtue Of The Earth Extends Upwards, As Has Been Said, So Very Far, Yet If Any Stone Should Be At A Distance Great Enough To Become Sensible Compared With The Earth's Diameter, It Is True That On The Motion Of The Earth Such A Stone Would Not Follow Altogether; Its Own Force Of Resistance Would Be Combined With The Attractive Force Of The Earth, And Thus It Would Extricate Itself In Some Degree From The Motion Of The Earth.

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.

A Mind Is Accustomed To Mathematical Deduction, When Confronted With The Faulty Foundations Of Astrology, Resists A Long, Long Time, Like An Obstinate Mule, Until Compelled By Beating And Curses To Put Its Foot Into That Dirty Puddle.

So, Fabricius, I Already Have This: That The Most True Path Of The Planet [mars] Is An Ellipse, Which Dürer Also Calls An Oval, Or Certainly So Close To An Ellipse That The Difference Is Insensible.

Wheresoever The Earth May Be Placed, Or Whithersoever It May Be Carried By Its Animal Faculty, Heavy Bodies Will Always Be Carried Towards It.

Either... The Moving Intelligences Of The Planets Are Weakest In Those That Are Farthest From The Sun, Or... There Is One Moving Intelligence In The Sun, The Common Center, Forcing Them All Round, But Those Most Violently Which Are Nearest, And That It Languishes In Some Sort And Grows Weaker At The Most Distant, Because Of The Remoteness And The Attenuation Of The Virtue.

The Sun Alone Appears, By Virtue Of His Dignity And Power, Suited For This Motive Duty (of Moving The Planets) And Worthy To Become The Home Of God Himself.