"Now, as God the maker play'd he taught the game to Nature whom he created in his image; taught her the selfsame game which he played to her."
Read quote
6 likes
Quote collection
Johannes Kepler quotes (page 5 of 5)
97 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
Read quote
6 likes
"Geometry existed before the creation. It is co-eternal with the mind of God...Geometry provided God with a model for the Creation."
Read quote
5 likes
"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."
Read quote
5 likes
"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."
Read quote
5 likes
"Discover the force of the skies O Men: once recognised it can be put to use."
Read quote
5 likes
"The Earth is round, and is inhabited on all sides, is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars."
Read quote
4 likes
"I also ask you my friends not to condemn me entirely to the mill of mathematical calculations, and allow me time for philosophical speculations, my only pleasures."
Read quote
4 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"wheresoever the earth may be placed, or whithersoever it may be carried by its animal faculty, heavy bodies will always be carried towards it."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes