60 Phrases by GALILEO GALILEI – About Education and Life

Anyone can speak obscurely, but very few can speak clearly.

But let us remember that we are dealing with infinities and indivisibles, which transcend our finite understanding, the former because of their magnitude, the latter because of their smallness.

It is a beautiful and enchanting sight to see the body of the Moon.

The vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than having never understood anything.

By denying scientific principles, one can maintain any paradox.

Some, in addition to loyalty to their original error, have I don’t know what fanciful interest in remaining hostile, not so much towards the things in question, as towards their discoverer.

Look now at the power of truth; the same experiment that at first glance seemed to show one thing, when examined more carefully, assures us the opposite.

Demonstrating a greater affection for their own opinions than for the truth, they sought to deny and refute the new things which, if they had cared to seek, their own senses would have shown them.

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not.

Doubt is the mother of invention.

Two truths cannot contradict each other.

The number of people who can reason well is much smaller than those who can reason poorly.

The sun, with all those planets that revolve around it and depend on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else to do in the universe.

Who would dare to claim that we know everything there is to know?

I, Galileo, son of the late Vicenzo Galilei, swear that I never said that prime numbers are useless. What I said was that you can’t count lunar craters by counting 2, 3, 5, 7.

Nothing happens contrary to nature… except the impossible, and that never happens.

The hypothesis is nice; Its only defect is that it is neither demonstrated nor demonstrable.

If you could see the earth illuminated from a place as dark as night, it would seem more splendid than the moon.

Who knows, but men will reduce me from the profession of philosopher to that of historian of the Inquisition!

The best science is not learned in books; The greatest wise man and best teacher is Nature.

To understand the Universe, you must understand the language in which it is written, the language of Mathematics.

Those who depend on manifest observations will philosophize better than those who persist in opinions repugnant to the senses.

Philosophy is written in this great book that is continually open to us: the universe; but you cannot understand it if you do not learn the language and the characters with which it is written.

The earth, in a fair and grateful exchange, returns to the moon illumination similar to that it receives from it during almost all of the darkest darkness of the night.

You can’t teach a man anything, but you can help him discover it for himself.

If I were to start my studies again, I should follow Plato’s advice and begin with the mathematical sciences, which proceed with great caution.

I will not admit anything established until it has been rigorously demonstrated.

In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as a small spark of reason in an individual man.

In time, you can discover everything that can be discovered, and even then, your progress will only be progressing away from humanity.

Benefits should be written in bronze, and injuries in the air.

Philosophy itself cannot but benefit from our disputes, for, if our conceptions prove true, new achievements will be made; If false, its refutation will further confirm the original doctrines.

In my studies of astronomy and philosophy I hold this opinion about the universe, that the Sun remains fixed in the center of the circle of celestial bodies, without changing its place; and the Earth, turning on itself, moves around the sun.

As far as philosophers are concerned, if they are true philosophers, that is, lovers of truth, they should not be irritated because the earth moves.

If philosophers realize that they have held a false belief, they should thank those who have shown them the truth.

You can make me say whatever you want; You can vilify me for saying what I say. However, it moves.

The laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics… the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without the help of which it is impossible to understand a single word.

Science proceeds more by what it has learned to ignore than by what it takes into account.

The Milky Way is nothing more than a mass of countless stars arranged in groups.

Nature… It is inexorable and immutable; She never transgresses the laws imposed upon her, nor does she care whether her reasons and methods of operation are understandable to men.

The purpose of science is not to open the door to eternal knowledge, but to limit eternal error.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; The point is to discover them.

I would beseech the learned and learned fathers of the church to consider with all diligence the difference that exists between matters of mere opinion and matters of demonstration.

Regarding issues that require reflection: the less they know and understand them, the more positively people try to discuss them.

To order astronomy professors to refute their own observations is to order them not to see what they see and not to understand what they understand.

Take note, theologians, that in your desire to make matters of faith out of propositions related to the solidity of the earth and the sun, you run the risk of having to condemn as heretics those who speak of the truth.

Being infinitely amazed, I also thank God, who has been pleased to make me the first observer of wonderful things, not revealed to ages past.

The Bible is a book about going to heaven. It is not a book about how the heavens go.

It bothers me when they restrict science by the authority of Scripture and yet do not consider themselves obligated to respond to reason and experiment.

The greatest wisdom is to know yourself.

I cannot believe that God has endowed us with senses, speech and intellect, and has wanted, disregarding the possible use of these, to give us by another means the information that we can acquire through them.

The prohibition of science would be contrary to the Bible, which in hundreds of places teaches us how the greatness and glory of God shines wonderfully in all his works, and should be read above all in the open book of heaven.

The doctrine that the Earth is the center of the universe and is motionless is absurd, and both philosophically and theologically false, and at the very least an error of faith.

Surely it is harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proven.

The few who understand the human intellect have knowledge equal to the Divine.

It is very pious and prudent to affirm that the Holy Bible can never tell lies, as long as its true meaning is understood.

No one can deny that the Bible is often abstract, and can say very different things from one another.

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we must begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations.

I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the sun is at the center of the universe and immobile, and that the earth is not at the center of it, and that it moves.

God could have made the birds fly with their golden bones and silver veins, but He didn’t. And that should prove something.

It was well said by His Excellency that the Holy Scripture cannot err. But he should have added that his expositors and interpreters are liable to err in many ways…