Top 47 Nicolaus Copernicus Quotes
#2. There may be babblers, wholly ignorant of mathematics, who dare to condemn my hypothesis, upon the authority of some part of the Bible twisted to suit their purpose. I value them not, and scorn their unfounded judgment.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#3. Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#4. Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be made clearer in their proper place.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#5. To know the mighty works of God, to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful workings of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance cannot be more grateful than knowledge.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#6. Although all the good arts serve to draw man's mind away from vices and lead it toward better things, this function can be more fully performed by this art, which also provides extraordinary intellectual pleasure.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#7. I shall now recall to mind that the motion of the heavenly bodies is circular, since the motion appropriate to a sphere is rotation in a circle.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#8. Therefore, having obtained the opportunity from these sources, I too began to consider the mobility of the earth.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#9. For it is the duty of an astronomer to compose the history of the celestial motions through careful and expert study.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#10. The earth together with its surrounding waters must in fact have such a shape as its shadow reveals, for it eclipses the moon with the arc of a perfect circle.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#11. In the midst of all dwells the Sun. For who could set this luminary in another or better place in this most glorious temple, than whence he can at one and the same time brighten the whole.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#13. So, influenced by these advisors and this hope, I have at length allowed my friends to publish the work, as they had long besought me to do.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#14. Pouring forth its seas everywhere, then, the ocean envelops the earth and fills its deeper chasms.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#15. The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison with the size of the heavens.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#16. Therefore I would not have it unknown to Your Holiness, the the only thing which induced me to look for another way of reckoning the movements of the heavenly bodies was that I knew that mathematicians by no means agree in their investigation thereof.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#17. Accordingly, since nothing prevents the earth from moving, I suggest that we should now consider also whether several motions suit it, so that it can be regarded as one of the planets. For, it is not the center of all the revolutions.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#18. For what could be more beautiful than the heavens which contain all beautiful things.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#20. So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#22. Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#23. Not only the phenomena of the others followed from this, but also it so bound together both the order and magnitude of all the planets and the spheres and the heaven itself, that in no single part could one thing be altered without confusion among the other parts and in all the universe.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#25. In first place we must observe that the universe is spherical. This is either because that figure is the most perfect, as not being articulated, but whole and complete in itself; or because it is the most capacious and therefore best suited for that which is to contain and preserve all things.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#26. For I am not so enamoured of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#27. The scorn which I had reason to fear on account of the novelty and unconventionality of my opinion almost induced me to abandon completely the work which I had undertaken ... Astronomy is written for astronomers. To them my work too will seem, unless I am mistaken, to make some contribution.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#28. Yet if anyone believes that the earth rotates, surely he will hold that its motion is natural, not violent.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#29. I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#30. Not a few other very eminent and scholarly men made the same request, urging that I should no longer through fear refuse to give out my work for the common benefit of students of Mathematics.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#31. In so many and such important ways, then, do the planets bear witness to the earth's mobility.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#32. For a traveler going from any place toward the north, that pole of the daily rotation gradually climbs higher, while the opposite pole drops down an equal amount.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#33. Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it were, the general scheme of the universe.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#34. Moreover, since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#35. The earth also is spherical, since it presses upon its center from every direction.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#36. I can easily conceive, most Holy Father, that as soon as some people learn that in this book which I have written concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, I ascribe certain motions to the Earth, they will cry out at once that I and my theory should be rejected.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#37. Every light has its shadow, and every shadow hath a succeeding morning.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#38. The Universe has been wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator
Nicolaus Copernicus
#41. The strongest affection and utmost zeal should, I think, promote the studies concerned with the most beautiful objects. This is the discipline that deals with the universe's divine revolutions, the stars' motions, sizes, distances, risings and settings ... for what is more beautiful than heaven?
Nicolaus Copernicus
#42. To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#43. We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#44. More stars in the north are seen not to set, while in the south certain stars are no longer seen to rise.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#45. If there be some who, though ignorant of all mathematics ... dare to reprove this work, because of some passage of Scripture, which they have miserably warped to their purpose, I regard them not, and even despise their rash judgement.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#46. Nations are not ruined by one act of violence, but gradually and in an almost imperceptible manner by the depreciation of their circulating currency, through its excessive quantity.
Nicolaus Copernicus
#47. We are taught all this [the motion of the earth on its axis and around the sun] by the order of succession, in which those phenomena (various planetary happenings) follow each other, and by the harmony of the world, if we will only, as the saying goes, look at the matter with both eyes.
Nicolaus Copernicus
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