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Johannes Kepler
(27 Dec 1571 - 15 Nov 1630)
German astronomer who formulated three major laws of planetary motion which enabled Isaac Newton to devise the law of gravitation. Working from the carefully measured positions of the planets recorded by Tycho Brahe, Kepler mathematically deduced his three laws from the data.
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Johannes Kepler Quotes on Heaven (7 quotes)
>> Click for 57 Science Quotes by Johannes Kepler
>> Click for Johannes Kepler Quotes on | Geometry | God |
>> Click for 57 Science Quotes by Johannes Kepler
>> Click for Johannes Kepler Quotes on | Geometry | God |
As soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking [on the moon and Jupiter]… Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.
— Johannes Kepler
(1610) As translated by Edward Rosen in Kepler’s Conversation with Galileo’s Sidereal Messenger (1965), 39.
I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body’s shadow lies here.
— Johannes Kepler
Epitaph that Kepler wrote for himself, a few months before he died. As translated from the original Latin, “Mensus eram coelos, nunc Terrae metior umbras. Mens coelestis erat, corporis umbra jacet.” In M. Caspar et al. (eds.), Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke (1937), 19, 393.
If there is anything that can bind the heavenly mind of man to this dreary 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.
— Johannes Kepler
In a letter to his son-in-law, Jakob Bartsch. Quoted in Norman Davidson, Sky Phenomena (2004), 131. Also see Johannes Kepler and Carola Baumgardt (ed.), Johannes Kepler: Life and Letters (1951), 190.
It is no small comfort when I reflect that we should not so much marvel at the vast and almost infinite breadth of the most distant heavens but much more at the smallness of us manikins and the smallness of this our tiny ball of earth and also of all the planets.
— Johannes Kepler
From Letter to Johann Herwart (1598), as quoted in Murray Roston, Milton and the Baroque (1980), 17.
My aim is to say that the machinery of the heavens is not like a divine animal but like a clock (and anyone who believes a clock has a soul gives the work the honour due to its maker) and that in it almost all the variety of motions is from one very simple magnetic force acting on bodies, as in the clock all motions are from a very simple weight.
— Johannes Kepler
Letter to J. G. Herwart von Hohenburg (16 Feb 1605). Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke (1937- ), Vol. 15, letter 325, l. 57-61, p. 146.
We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens ... 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.
— Johannes Kepler
From Mysterium Cosmographicum. Quote as translated in Carl Sagan, Cosmos (1980, 1985), 32.
We do not ask what hope of gain makes a little bird warble, since we know that it takes delight in singing because it is for that very singing that the bird was made, so there is no need to ask why the human mind undertakes such toil in seeking out these secrets of the heavens. ... And just as other animals, and the human body, are sustained by food and drink, so the very spirit of Man, which is something distinct from Man, is nourished, is increased, and in a sense grows up on this diet of knowledge, and is more like the dead than the living if it is touched by no desire for these things.
— Johannes Kepler
Mysterium Cosmographicum. Translated by A. M. Duncan in The Secret of the Universe (1981), 55.
See also:
- 27 Dec - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Kepler's birth.
- Johannes Kepler And the New Astronomy, by James R. Voelkel. - book suggestion.
- Booklist for Johannes Kepler.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
